Game 32: This one goes to 11

A day after getting pumped up by owner Terry Pegula, the Sabres dropped their 11th straight game to fall to last place in the Eastern Conference.

MONTRÉAL — One day ago, following the Buffalo Sabres’ 10th straight loss, a 5-3 defeat against the Toronto Maple Leafs, owner Terry Pegula arrived in Quebec to speak with the team and get them focused to snap out of what’s been the lowest point of the season and began ranking up with other losing streaks from lost seasons’ past.

The message was loud and clear for the players when they spoke about it on Tuesday morning ahead of their matchup against the Montréal Canadiens. They liked that the owner took the time to encourage them, and the plan was that this could be the turning point to get the Sabres pointed back up the standings in the Eastern Conference.

It was 19 seconds into Tuesday night’s game when Jake Evans’ shot went off the end boards and off the skate of the referee right to the front of the net for Joel Armia to put away and gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead.

A team that’s fragile and has been thrown off its game repeatedly since the losing streak began at the end of November can’t often withstand fits of bad luck. A team that’s had goals against, fluky and true alike, turn the tide of numerous losses suffering a blow like that to start the game would be enough to test their mettle.

Armia’s goal served to be an uppercut out of the blue that put the Sabres on the mat for the final 59:41 that remained to be played.

“I just thought it was that first goal just bothered us too much,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “Then it was we’re going to race here, race there. I thought we settled down about the 10-minute mark finally and we got organized.”

It was 6:07 later when Patrik Laine scored the first of his three goals on the night to make it 2-0 and if not for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen making a few great stops in the first, the game would’ve been all but over after 20 minutes. Hindsight taught us otherwise.

“Just no legs, no jump, no energy,” Connor Clifton said. “You think, obviously, with the meeting yesterday, a 10-game losing streak at least we have legs and energy. We didn’t. Chased the whole game.”

Hoo boy.

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