Jason Pominville scores 2 more goals for Buffalo.
By Chris Ryndak / Sabres.com
Jason Pominville scored twice for his second multi-goal outing of the young season, but it’s the result that matters. Buffalo dropped a 4-2 decision last night to the Sharks in San Jose to bring their record to 0-3-1.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Sabres have not held a lead in a game since opening night and the trend continued at SAP Center Thursday night. San Jose struck first, just 2:15 into the contest thanks to a power-play goal by Tomas Hertl. The teams traded goals the rest of the night and Timo Meier’s strike with 5:30 remaining in the second period proved to be the winner.
With one point in their first four games, the Sabres are off to their slowest start since the 2013-14 campaign.
“We’ve got to just figure out a way to be sick of losing,” Jack Eichel, who had two assists, said after the game last night. “I know I’m sick of losing, there’s a lot of guys who are sick of losing. But there’s a difference between playing hard and playing hard and smart. We’ve got to execute our game. All the way through the lineup, myself included, we’ve just got to be sick of losing.”
Eichel (1+4), Pominville (4+1) and Evander Kane (4+2) have led the way for Buffalo, but they’re currently the only three players on the team with a crooked number in the goal column. Zemgus Girgensons (0+2), Rasmus Ristolainen (0+2), Ryan O’Reilly (0+1) and Seth Griffith (0+1) are the only other players with points through four games.
One way to generate more offense? Create more traffic in front of the opposing goaltender.
“You’re not going to beat goalies if you don’t have anyone in front of the net,” Robin Lehner, who made 23 saves, said. “I think [Martin] Jones saw every shot today. It’s not to be on anyone, but we’ve got to recognize it as a team.”
From the game recap: While the Sabres did cut down on their mistakes, the ones they did make led to pucks in the back of their net. After Tomas Hertl opened the scoring for San Jose on the power play, the Sharks got their second and third goals from Chris Tierney and Timo Meier on defensive-zone breakdowns.
“Those things we’re going to have to correct,” Sabres coach Phil Housley said. “I think the guys realize that they’re close. You can’t fault them for that. We’ve got to recognize that it’s going to be hard for us to get out of this. Hopefully this makes us a better team going forward.”
One cool little tidbit about Pominville’s performance (other than that, statistically, he’s off to the best start of his career)?
The last time the Sabres had a multi-goal scorer in four straight games was March 12 to 19, 2013
Those goal scorers were Marcus Foligno, Drew Stafford, Cody Hodgson and Steve Ott.
What’s coming up
Buffalo is schedule to practice later this afternoon at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Game time Saturday is set for 10:30 pm.