Game 26: When better isn't quite enough

In a game with two teams riding four-game losing streaks, something had to give and this time around it was the Sabres whose misery continues.

BUFFALO — When compared to Tuesday night’s disastrous defeat to the Colorado Avalanche, the Buffalo Sabres’ effort on Thursday was light years beyond the final 40 minutes of that game. And that’s a good thing because anything that resembled it in any way would be cause for investigation.

That’s what makes Thursday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the also-skidding Winnipeg Jets that much more frustrating. The Sabres were better than the Jets in a lot of ways and you could make a conspiracy-laden argument that they actually did beat them in regulation all things considered. After all, the Jets had a goal allowed despite a goalie interference challenge by Lindy Ruff and the Sabres had an apparent go-ahead goal early in the third period taken off the board by Scott Arniel’s similar challenge that was upheld.

Still, despite getting a point out of the effort, it still goes down as a loss and one point they won’t be able to recover and the loss of any points in games like these tends to come back and haunt teams, especially in a very busy playoff race in the Eastern Conference.

“It’s not what we wanted, but I feel like it was a good turnaround,” Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said. “We defended well, boxing out, taking care of rebounds, so way better than last game.”

As harsh as the words were for the Sabres after the game Tuesday night, the effort in moving on past that and playing it forward on Thursday was noticeable all the same, particularly without captain Rasmus Dahlin on the blue line because of back spasms.

More ahead on a tough loss and the continuation of a losing skid.