The Buffalo sabres blew a 3-1 lead against the Washington Capitals on home ice and dropped a 4-3 shootout defeat. Matt Hendricks and Alex Ovechkin both scored for Washington in the shootout that lasted only two rounds.
In an earlier move Saturday the Sabres traded Jordan Leopold to the St. Louis Blues for a second-round pick and a conditional fifth-round selection in the June draft.
Leopold is a 10-year NHL veteran who has spent the past three seasons in Buffalo. He has two goals and six assists in 24 games this season in the final year of his contract.
Top Notes
- Ville Leino scored his first two goals of the season. Leino now has six points (2+4) in eight games since returning from an injury that sidelined him for the first 27 games of the season.
- Christian Ehrhoff, appearing in his 600th NHL game, scored his fourth goal of the season. Ehrhoff now has five points (2+3) in his last five games.
- Tyler Ennis recorded an assist on the second Buffalo goal; he now has eight points (2+6) in his last seven games.
- Andrej Sekera also recorded an assist on the second Buffalo goal; he has six points (1+5) in his last six games.
- The Sabres now have points in five straight home games (3-0-2).
Top Quotes
Buffalo forward Steve Ott:
On the tough loss: “It’s a tough one, obviously. They score a goal with 39 seconds left in the third and all the guys responsible on the ice – myself included – we tried to get in the lane to block the shot and it obviously got by me and it hit the post and goes in. We obviously lose the game and it was a hard one to loose because of how tight we were all night.”
On starting off well with urgency and being fast pace: “You know, the urgency was there. Ville had a couple huge goals. [Christian Ehrhoff ] started us off in the first period, I thought we were obviously on them, giving up a short-handed one stinks. You give up one of those and that’s obviously a big no-no. We had a chance to win the game right to the end, the issue is we didn’t close out the game, plain and simple. You have to win those ones.”
On the power play working again: “Any time you get the chance to go up 3-1 in the game that’s huge. We haven’t had that very much this season to kind of get that insurance goal, to give us a cushion I guess you can say. Getting that was huge but obviously that short-handed one put them right back in it and we didn’t get the job done six-on-five and that’s a difference in the game.”
Buffalo forward Ville Leino:
On the short-handed goal turning the momentum around: “It’s disappointing. That is a big goal to give up and after that they were fired up and wanted to win the game and that’s just things that shouldn’t happen.”
On wanting to put out a good performance after being benched Thursday: “Obviously I wanted to come back and it’s not fun you want to be at your best when the game is on the line and playoffs are on the line, you should go out there and enjoy it, not be nervous or anything.”
On the team being aggressive at the beginning of the game: “I think we have to stay aggressive. We start games aggressive and some games we do really well and we just have to keep going 60 minutes, it is not enough to do 40 or 20 minutes, we have to go all game and stay aggressive.”
Buffalo defenseman Robyn Regehr:
On Washington’s power play unit: “Washington, I think, is in the top three in power play in the league so you don’t want to give those units the opportunities. I forget how many penalties we took tonight – I think four or five – and that’s too many, but when we do take a penalty we have to get the job done. Those are big swings in the long term, when you can kill off a penalty.”
On Enroth being the best penalty killer for the team: “I think he was the best player for us by far. He played a great game and he gave us a chance to win. We should have won that game – unfortunately it came down to special teams.”
Washington goaltender Braden Holtby:
On the Rangers’ loss helping out the Capitals in the standings: “I didn’t know they lost actually so that’s big. But our focus is on our games so we will let the other guys sort themselves out, so we know if we win a certain amount of games that we give ourselves a good opportunity to make it to the playoffs so that’s our goal.”
On coming back from a two goal deficit to win in the shootout: “It’s a credit to our guys for sticking with it, Greenie [Mike Green] came up with a huge goal and that’s what the leaders on your team and he did a great job of that.”
On their playoff chances and getting help from teams close in the standings: “I said earlier, we are not trying to pay attention to the other guys too much. There are so many guys in the race right now that just let them sort it out. Our job is, we want to win a certain amount of games to be in that playoff picture in the end. Whether it is 10-5 or 11-4 who knows but we know what exactly we have to win, guys get hot and that will give us the best shot.”
Washington forward Alex Ovechkin:
On the Capitals ability to win after falling behind: “Unfortunately we didn’t have a good start but we still had chances and I think I can get two goals in the first. They just use what they have, it’s kind of frustrating when they have one shot on goal and it goes on and they have two shots on goal and it goes in. We know that the third period was going to be the biggest period of the year and the guys handled it with the goal, short-handed by Browsy [Troy Brouwer] and dumped it in and we get in position and we get rewarded.”
On his own play: “Again, I think I can score almost every shot tonight especially when I scored on the power play and we have four-on-four, why it gives me almost a 100% chance to score and I just shoot it and like I said, almost an empty corner of the net and I just missed it, it might be a tie game.”
Washington defenseman Mike Green:
On the third period: “That’s it right there is character, you know we had a big goal by Troy [Brouwer] early in the third and that gave us the momentum to go on and believe that we could do it and it was just a matter of getting it done.”
On whether the one shot, which he missed felt different from the shot where he scored from the same position: “No, almost exact same spot on the ice and shot. The first one, I seen the whole way, it hit the post and went out and I went back to the bench and said to myself I wish I would have hit the back of the net.”
On the Capitals chance to improve to .500 on the road and overall tomorrow: “It is a huge trip for us. We have been playing well on the road lately and we need to continue that. It’s harder to win on the road and these points are huge for us.”
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