Game 44: Keeping it weird in Buffalo
The Sabres threatened to blow another big lead in the third but closed out the Hurricanes 4-2 thanks to a Ryan McLeod hat trick that exists in the theoretical realm.
BUFFALO — The Buffalo Sabres don’t like to make things easy.
After building a 3-0 lead on the Carolina Hurricanes after two periods, the Sabres saw the lead whittled away in the third down to 3-2 as they, to borrow an English football term, parked the bus.
The Sabres let the Hurricanes pepper away with 33 shot attempts in the final 20 minutes while only getting six of their own. In the end, Carolina only got eight of them on net while Buffalo got zero shots on goal.
And yet, Ryan McLeod completed his hat trick with an awarded goal with 24 seconds to go to ice the game and provide the 4-2 final score.
McLeod chased down a Tage Thompson shot attempt on the empty net that went off the post from long range and as he went to bury it, Hurricanes burly, bearded back-liner Brent Burns bashed McLeod’s stick as he went to shoot blowing it to pieces in the process.
Scoring a goal without a shot on goal in a period in which the Sabres had zero shots on goal is the kind of catnip trivia fans go wild for. They’re the first team to do that in a 20-minute period since the NHL data became available in 1965-1966.
“We, obviously of course, had to make it interesting there and nerve-wracking, but we found a way,” Dylan Cozens said.
More ahead from a game that existed on the ethereal plane.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Noted Hockey to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.