Small mistakes prove costly for Buffalo against Carolina.
By Chris Ryndak / Sabres.com
Jack Eichel put on a show Friday night, scoring twice in the third period to cap off a hat trick and tie the game against Carolina. However, the Hurricanes capitalized in overtime to claim the extra point.
Buffalo was back at practice on Sunday and put in some 3-on-3 work.
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From the Lexus Postgame Report…
With whiteout conditions making visibility sparse and travel difficult in parts of Western New York, fans who ventured out to KeyBank Center to watch the Buffalo Sabres host the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night deserved to be treated. Thanks to Jack Eichel, they were.
Eichel put forth a career performance, scoring the first hat trick of his young career and the first by a Sabre in Buffalo in more than six years to go along with an assist and a career-high 11 shots on goal. The performance livened the crowd and erased a two-goal deficit in the third period.
In the end, though, it wasn’t enough. Jacob Slavin scored 2:15 into overtime, sealing a 5-4 win for the Hurricanes. The Sabres have now earned points in five of their last six games, but three of them have been overtime losses.
“It’s not good enough to get a point,” Eichel said. “It seems like it’s been the reoccurring theme here of late. We’ve had good effort and put ourselves in games and (had) opportunities to win and we’re coming out with overtime losses.”
“There’s not a ton of glaring mistakes in our game right now but the small ones add up,” Jake McCabe said. “We don’t make a play on the wall or as defensemen we don’t make a good breakout pass, then we’re stuck in our zone. It might not happen that play, but a couple plays down the road and that’s when those plays start adding up.”
“I hand it to our guys to find the energy to come back and tie the game,” coach Phil Housley said. “I thought it was a great effort on their part because it easily could’ve gone in the other direction. For the most part we played a really, really good game.”