Sin City Sabres
The Sabres arrived in Las Vegas winners of three straight and showing that lessons have been learned

LAS VEGAS — A topic fans got pretty sick of during the Buffalo Sabres eight-game losing streak in late October/early November was about the team learning lessons from losses and what they could take away from it. Fans hate losses, period, and any explanation for them will ring hollow. Don Granato stresses experience in both how to learn the game and from what the very young team needs to learn.
What’s fascinating about watching this group grow together is seeing the lessons they learned pay off in ways game to game as the wins have come more often than not over the past month.
They’ve won three straight games and the past two came against teams they lost to in Buffalo.
Beating the Avalanche on their turf playing with five defensemen due to Owen Power’s pregame injury and hanging on for dear life in the third period after getting bombarded with shots and chances showed resilience. It also showed what staying out of the penalty box against a team with offensive studs can do. They seized on their chances and held it down to come away with a 4-2 win.
One of the more encouraging aspects of the game was how strong Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was in goal. It’s starts like that which keep critics off his back, for a little while at least, about how he’s playing and progressing. That was a chaotic third period and the Avalanche had grade-A chances throughout the game and Luukkonen held fast.
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