Game 73: Absolutely brutal

In a game in a situation where the Buffalo Sabres essentially had to win out to keep any semblance of hope for the playoffs alive, Ottawa got out to a 5-0 lead and never looked back in a 6-2 win.

KeyBank Center in Buffalo is nearly emptied out with 1:55 to go in the third period. Ottawa defeated Buffalo 6-2. (Photo: Joe Yerdon)

BUFFALO — In a season that’s been loaded with frustration for just about everyone around the Buffalo Sabres, the one thing we’ve been spared is an outright stink bomb of a game.

Sure, there have been some rough periods and tough endings, but a knock-down, drag-out complete turd? Not at all. That was, at least, until the first 20 minutes against Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night when the Senators raced out to a 4-0 lead 8:49 into the game and chased starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and tacked on a fifth goal with 49 seconds to go in the period to take a 5-0 lead into the intermission and gave the already angst-filled fans a chance to let it all out booing the team to the locker room.

Given the Sabres were in a position where they almost had to win out to have a fighting chance to make the playoffs, a long shot indeed as it was, coming out like that in the first 20 minutes of the first game of a five-game homestand that was set to either be the start of an improbable run to the finish or the coda to a season filled with unfulfilled hope and expectations, that was how it began.

“I thought, our season’s on the line, we got a team we played three other times already, right, to finish the season series,” Sabres defenseman Connor Clifton said. “They came in and they gave it to us, and we had no answer. Obviously, you give up five, that was that. We, obviously, have two in the second and we try to give a push, and then they start clearing pucks, dumping it in and making it hard on us getting to their net. I think, yeah, that game, the first period, that was it.”

More from an inexplicable game just ahead…