An $80-million contract will only make you so happy.
Through four games, the Buffalo Sabres are 0-3-1 with nine goals scored and 18 allowed. After a strong summer adding the likes of Jason Pominville, Marco Scandella and Nathan Beaulieu for cheap to fill out a good young core, many suspected the Sabres could make some progress in 2017-18. It’s early, but so far the team has looked similar to ones of the recent past.
Jack Eichel, projected to have a breakout season after posting 57 points in 61 games last season is off to a good start on offence with five points (one goal) in four games. He’s tied for the team lead with Pominville and pending UFA Evander Kane, but defence and goaltending has remained a problem. Eichel, who signed an eight-year extension with the team 10 days ago, is fed up with it.
“We’ve got to just figure a way to be sick of losing,” Eichel told Mike Harrington of Buffalo News. “I know I’m sick of losing. There’s a lot of guys that are sick of losing. There’s a difference between playing hard and playing hard and smart. We’ve got to execute our game all the way through the lineup, myself included.”
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The Sabres have been outshot in three of their four games so far this season, but the opponents’ totals have dropped each game: from 40 to 33 to 31 and 26 against the San Jose Sharks Thursday night. However, the Sabres only managed five shots themselves in the third period against the Sharks when the game was still to be decided.
The Sabres haven’t led at any point in their past three games.
“We all need to relax,” Eichel said. “We have a lot of good players on this team. It will come. It will come. It’s frustrating it’s not coming right now. We want to see results. We’re working hard but sometimes working hard is not enough.”
It isn’t about to get any easier for the Sabres, though. They’ll continue their California road trip with back-to-back games in Los Angeles and Anaheim this weekend before heading to Vegas on Tuesday night.
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