Game 78: Great Caesar's Ghost

Early turnovers put the Sabres in an early hole they couldn't climb out of in a 3-1 loss to the Red Wings.

DETROIT — In the Buffalo Sabres two visits to Detroit’s Little Caesar’s Arena this season, both in the final weeks of the season, it may as well have been the Ides of March.

Twice the Sabres faced the Red Wings in their building with chances to make their case stronger to lurch into the playoff race in a last dash for the final wild card spot and twice they’ve left Michigan on the wrong end of the decision.

This time around, the Sabres desperately needed a win just to keep the slimmest of hopes alive but were done in by early turnovers (one from Jack Quinn, another a miscommunication on a line change with Zack Benson) that became goals against from Lucas Raymond and, of course, Patrick Kane.

“It was another mistake that looked identical,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “No one wants that to happen and that happened twice. In the postgame, you can sum it up and those were obviously big mistakes.”

That 2-0 hole became 3-0 on a Dylan Larkin power play goal and with it an already hard game to win on the road became damned near impossible to win.

“We’re making a playoff push, they’re making a playoff push, and they came out with a lot more intensity than we did,” Alex Tuch said. “We didn’t keep it simple, obviously. Turned a couple pucks over, but we’ve got to be able to help the guys out. (If) they do make a turnover or something, we’ve got to just push to help them out as much as possible and if we give up one quick, we have to just say, ‘Let’s be smart about it.’

“We can’t go down 3-0 against a team like that. They’re pretty good defensively, they’re going to shut it down. They’ve got a good goaltender in net so we were unable to climb out of that hole.”

More on the potential end of the playoff dream in Detroit with four games left to play.