Missed opportunties cost Sharks in loss to Buffalo Sabres

The San Jose Sharks will perhaps leave KeyBank Arena on Monday afternoon after their game with the Buffalo Sabres pondering what could have been. What would have happened if they had shot the puck on a 4 on 2 inside the Sabres’ zone in the second period, just moments before they gave up the game’s first goal at the other end? What if they had played a direct, assertive style for 60 minutes, instead of just in bits and pieces? What if they had won the special teams battle? Mostly, how much different would they feel if they went into their game Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks having a chance to finish a tumultuous road trip with a winning record? The Sharks might have lamented all of those things following their 3 0 loss to the Sabres, their 14th defeat in their last 15 games, as they fell 1 3 0 on the five game trip.

The Sharks (10 31 3) were unable to recover after they allowed goals to Casey Mittelstadt and Alex Tuch 2:03 apart in the second period, as they were shut out for the seventh time this season. The Sharks went 0 for 2 on the power play and Tuch’s goal, at the 14:37 mark of the second period, came with Fabian Zetterlund serving a high sticking penalty.

Kaapo Kahkonen made 32 saves and counterpart Ukko Pekka Luukkonen stopped all 27 shots he faced for his second shutout of the season. Kahkonen was coming off a game last Tuesday in which he allowed four goals on 20 shots in what became a 7 1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kahkonen entered Monday on a seven game personal winless skid, going 0 6 1 with a .897 save percentage in his last eight outings before Monday.

Monday’s game circumstances were a bit out of the ordinary but nothing too abnormal. With a massive snowstorm hitting Western New York, the Sharks waited for close to 24 hours in Ottawa before they were able to fly into Buffalo on Sunday evening. The Sharks landed in Buffalo at around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday and were at their hotel roughly an hour later.

“It actually was better than I anticipated,” Sharks coach David Quinn said of the plane landing at Buffalo Niagara International Airport. “It was windy, for sure. But the pilots did a great job managing the situation and, the minute we landed, they were all kind of talking about how that wasn’t that bad.

A lot easier than we anticipated.” Saturday, the NHL announced that the game’s start time was being moved up one hour from 1 p.m. to noon (EST) to help provide some distance from the AFC wild card game between the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers in nearby Orchard Park. That game was to set to begin at 4:30 p.m.

(EST)..