Canadiens running on empty as Sabres rally late for win
‘I’m not going to say our guys didn’t work, but they outcompeted us,’ Julien says
BUFFALO The Canadiens looked like they ran out of gas Thursday night, losing 4-3 to the Buffalo Sabres and getting outshot 42-22 with Kyle Okposo scoring the winner on a power play with 1:01 left on the clock.
But that’s not the way Canadiens coach Claude Julien saw it.
“They outcompeted us,” Julien said. “I’m not going to say our guys didn’t work, but they outcompeted us. They won a lot of battles along the walls, way more than usual. In our own end, we had to do a better job of killing plays and getting the puck out. We didn’t do a good job of that. They were on pucks quicker than we were on a lot of occasions. But even so, for a road game we were still in the game with a chance to win or at least come out with a point and we blew it. It’s our ownfault.”
The Canadiens got two goals from Max Domi and a single from Joel Armia, while Jason Pominville scored twice for the Sabres and Sam Reinhart also scored. Armia was in the penalty box for tripping when Okposo scored the winner.
“I’m going to be honest with you, I was a little frustrated with that last penalty,” Julien said. “At that time of the game, I just felt that there was a little bit of maybe embellishment. I’m not going to say embellishment … but to me it was a weak call at that time of the game. That frustrated me. But at the end of the day, it was our own fault for putting ourselves in that position in the first place because of the way we played tonight.”
Pominville’s second goal, which tied the score 2-2 at 17:42 of the second period, came after he bumped into goalie Antti Niemi and knocked him down after being checked by defenceman Jeff Petry, then got up and took a pass from Jeff Skinner in the slot to score. The Canadiens called for a video review for goalie interference, but the goal counted.
“I feel like if I didn’t fall I wouldn’t have lost the puck behind the net and it could have been a different play,” Niemi said.
Defenceman Jordie Benn also didn’t think the Canadiens ran out of gas.
“It just didn’t go our way,” he said. “They pushed it to us pretty good in the second period. We got away from our game. We pushed for a little bit in the third there, but just didn’t come out with a win.
“We definitely need to learn from this game. We’re definitely going to go back in the room and watch the video on where things kind of went wrong and we’ll critique those things and be better next game.”
The Canadiens will be back in action Saturday night in Boston against the Bruins (7 p.m., SN1, CITY, TVA Sports).
Domi, acquired from the Arizona Coyotes during the off-season in exchange for Alex Galchenyuk, now leads the Canadiens in scoring with 4-6-10 totals, one point ahead of Petry (1-8-9), who picked up an assist against the Sabres. Domi scored only nine goals in each of the last two seasons with the Coyotes and four of them last season were empty-netters. All of Domi’s goals this season have come with the goalie in the net.
Julien is already getting tired of reporters asking him if he’s surprised by Domi’s performance.
“He’s a first-round (draft) pick,” the coach said. “He was a heckuva player in junior. Maybe he had a couple of so-so years, but he’s not surprised me as far as what we thought the potential was. Where I’m impressed with him is that he has bought into shooting a little bit more and he’s starting to score some goals and we need that from a guy like him. So he deserves a lot of kudos for how he’s been playing lately.”
Domi scored on two of his three shots against the Sabres, but it wasn’t enough for a team that definitely looked like it ran out of gas.