The Buffalo Sabres were on the road Saturday night, in a game that saw them get shutout, losing 4-0 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Buffalo’s offense couldn’t find their groove in this one, despite recording 35 shots on the night.

As for the defense, the unit allowed four goals and 40 shots in the loss.

Buffalo’s goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen allowed three of the four goals, making 36 saves along the way.

The Sabres special teams didn’t play well either, as the team gave up a power play goal, and their own power play went 0/2 on the evening as well.

In the end, Buffalo would lose 4-0, which is currently their worst loss of the season, as the team drops back to .500 with a 7-7-1 record.

Recap

1st period

Both teams would start off with a few good chances early, but neither side could pull away.

As the period continued, Pittsburgh’s offense started to get more chances than Buffalo, but Luukkonen kept it tied at zero.
Buffalo’s offense started to pick it up late in the period, and applied some good pressure to the Pittsburgh defense.

However, late in the period, Penguins Evgeni Malkin would score on a shot from below the goal line to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead heading into the first intermission.

2nd period

The Buffalo Sabres offense remained stagnant to start the second period, not being able to generate many scoring chances in the beginning half of the frame.

On the other side, Pittsburgh kept up its early period success, but the Sabres Luukkonen kept it a one-goal game.

Buffalo would then take a penalty, but would kill it off as Buffalo remained within one.
The Sabres offense would start to get going late again, but Penguins Drew O’Connor would score his first of the season to increase Pittsburgh’s lead to two.

Pittsburgh would continue to apply pressure, and would force Buffalo to commit its second penalty of the night.

This would put Pittsburgh on the power play late in the period, and the Penguins would start the third on the man-advantage.

3rd period

Pittsburgh would open the third period by scoring their third goal of the game via superstar defensemen Erik Karlsson, who recorded his third goal of the season on the play to extend the Penguins lead to 3-0.

Pittsburgh would then start to slow the game down, playing more conservatively in an attempt to limit Buffalo’s scoring chances.

This would work, as Buffalo couldn’t get anything going yet again, and would enter the final 10 minutes trailing 3-0.

Buffalo would get a power play late, but couldn’t score and the team would become increasingly desperate to generate offense.

This would prompt the Sabres to pull their goaltender, but again the team’s offense couldn’t score, and Erik Karlsson would score the empty net goal for his second goal of the night to make it 4-0.

This would put the game away, and Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry would record his third shutout of the season as the Penguins cruised to a 4-0 win at home.

Takeaways

Buffalo looked very sluggish for the last two periods of the game, and the team fell 4-0 in a disappointing effort on the road.
With the loss, Buffalo falls to seventh in the Atlantic division, and are tied for 11th in the conference.

Buffalo now looks ahead to their matchup Tuesday night at home against the rival Boston Bruins.