Buffalo Sabres Fall to Tampa Bay in a Shoot Out

Having lost five of their last six games, as far as I'm concerned Buffalo Sabres fans should realistically hope their team loses as many games as possible thru the end of the season for a better draft choice.  The Sabres chances of making the playoffs this year are the smallest of small, so just pack it in and think ahead to next year.

The Sabres lost another shoot out game Saturday night at KeyBank Center.  The Tampa Bay Lightning scored on both of their first two attempts against Robin Lehner while Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel were stopped on both of their attempts and that was enough for the Lightning to beat the Sabres 2 to 1.

The Sabres have had seven games go to a shoot out this season and they've lost six of them.  Only the Toronto Maple Leafs have a worse record losing eight out of nine shoot out games.

Only two players have been able to actually score a shoot out goal for the Sabres this season and one of them isn't even with the team right now.  Sam Reinhart has scored twice in five chances.  And Cal O'Reilly, now with the Rochester Americans has the only other shoot out goal on two opportunities.

Other players to have had shoot out opportunities this season are Brian Gionta, Ryan O'Reilly and Kyle Okposo and none of them have been able to score.  Meanwhile Buffalo goaltenders can't seem to stop opposing shooters.  Robin Lehner whiffed so badly on the winning goal by Nikita Kucherov it was almost laughable.

The Sabres opened the scoring with a power play goal by Ryan O'Reilly with just seconds remaining in the first period and played well enough defensively to win on most nights, but they couldn't solve the Tampa Bay defense and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.  The Sabres also had a golden opportunity to win the game in overtime when they had a 4 on 3 power play but couldn't finish it off.

It doesn't get any easier, the Sabres play in Pittsburgh on Sunday night.