Summary

The Buffalo Sabres hit the ice for the first time in their 2023 season Thursday night in a game that saw them fall 5-1 to the New York Rangers.

Buffalo’s offense couldn’t get anything going, as they scored just once despite a plethora of opportunities which included four power plays.

The Sabres defense wasn’t much better, surrendering five goals on 30 shots, which featured a short-handed goal given up to Rangers forward Chris Kreider.

As for Levi, he didn’t perform nearly as well as many thought, allowing four goals on 29 shots faced in his first start of the season.

However, Buffalo did add a layer of physicality to their game that we haven’t seen in a long time from this Sabres team, and certainly saw almost none of a year ago.

Recap

With emotions and expectations high, the Sabres and Rangers got started at KeyBank Center. The Rangers would strike first under five minutes in, as Alexis Lafrenière beat Devon Levi to give New York a 1-0 lead.

After the first goal, the Sabres would start to become more physical, something we didn’t see much of from the team last season.

However, this highly aggressive play style would catch up with them, as Sabres rookie
Zach Benson would take a hooking penalty that would set up a Chris Kreider goal on the power play extending New York’s lead to 2-0.

Late in the period Buffalo would finally start to gain some momentum of their own, but it was all for nothing, as the Rangers would take a 2-0 lead into the first intermission.

2nd period

Early in the second period, the Sabres continued to apply pressure as they looked to make a comeback. However, after a giveaway in the neutral zone, Artemi Panarin would score the Rangers third goal of the game extending their lead even further.

Despite being down three, the Sabres continued to push and would be rewarded late in the period, as young forward J.J Peterka would score the team’s first goal of the night, bringing the deficit back to two.

After the goal, Buffalo continued to work hard, which forced the Rangers Erik Gustafsson to take a penalty. This would put the Sabres on the power play as they headed into the third period.

3rd period

The Sabres would start the third period with an opportunity to get back in the game on the power play. After a great display of defense from New York which included four blocked shots, the Rangers would kill the penalty and start to gain momentum.

The Sabres defensemen Rasmus Dahlin would then take a penalty, putting New York back on the power play. However, the Rangers would then take two penalties of their own in rapid succession, giving Buffalo another opportunity on the man advantage.

After the Dahlin penalty expired, the Sabres had a two-man advantage but again couldn’t capitalize. Not only that, but they would also give up another goal to Chris Kreider to give New York a 4-1 lead.

Shortly after this, the Sabres would become desperate, pulling goaltender Devon Levi to get an extra attacker.

However, this wouldn’t help swing the momentum as Rangers captain Jacob Trouba scored an empty net goal to lift New York past the Sabres by a final score of 5-1.

Takeaways

Overall, the Sabres didn’t look that great. The team couldn’t recover from a lackluster start and eventually fell to their in-state counterparts.

The team was very physical and while that was a new layer added to the team, it did cause penalties and give New York some valuable scoring chances that ended up hurting Buffalo more than helping.