The crowd at the KeyBank Center serenaded Bills players with the “Shout” song and cheered on the Sabers with numerous chants of “Let’s Go Buffalo!”
There were audible gasps in response to the on ice action and emotional applause to pay tribute to legendary broadcaster Rick Jeanneret. They came together to say goodbye to the man who narrated some of the greatest triumphs in franchise history, but they also packed the building to see a troublesome Sabers team, inspiring hope for a fan base tired of turmoil and disappointment.
The 3-2 overtime win over the Chicago Blackhawks in front of 16,505 fans on Friday night to wrap up the 82-game 2021-22 season was a snapshot of everything that’s changed for the Sabers on and off the ice since the club met to the training camp in September. They equalized twice to force extra time and Casey Mittelstadt scored the deciding goal to set a 32-39-11 season record.
“Oh man, I don’t even know what was going through my head,” beamed Mittelstadt. “It was a good way to end the year. Obviously there have been some ups and downs for everyone. … It was a great way to end it for RJ.”
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Rick Jeanneret calls his last game Friday night’s Sabers game after a career spanning over 50 years.
On the ice there were exciting, suspenseful plays from the founding players, who are the new faces of the franchise. Days Thompson, a 24-year-old who switched to center at camp, scored his 38th goal of the season as team captain to level the game 1-1 in the third half after a cross-ice pass from a rejuvenated Jeff Skinner.
Power, just 19 and eight games into his NHL career, scored his second goal on a shot through traffic to equalize again, with a 5:38 remaining the rule. And Mittelstadt finished the job in overtime after a rebound created by Dylan Cozens.
The Sabers beat the Blackhawks 19-4 in the third period and overtime.
“I think we just fed off of the crowd and each other on the bench,” Thompson said. “I don’t think there was anyone who didn’t believe that we would come back and win that. I think the reason for that is the character we have in our group.”
Drafted first overall in 2021 and 2018 respectively, Power and fellow defender Rasmus Dahlin showed off their magic with the puck and played well around their own net. The pair, along with Mattias Samuelsson and Henri Jokiharju, give Buffalo an impressive top 4 on the blue line in their quest to reach the playoffs.
Alex Tuch, a Syracuse native who was acquired in the blockbuster trade that sent Jack Eichel to Vegas, prodded his teammates and crowd with relentless play with and without the puck. The lineup was filled with players expected to be with the Sabers for years to come, including recent first-round draft picks Cozens, Mittelstadt and Peyton Krebs, who also came to the Eichel deal.
The noises. This voice. We will never forget. Jeanneret scored a final winner for the Buffalo Sabers in the last game of his career.
Of the 16 skaters in the Sabers’ roster, only three are pending unrestricted free agents: Vinnie Hinostroza, Mark Pysyk and John Hayden. It’s possible all three could be back at the club next season. Ten in the lineup were under the age of 25. And the Sabers’ progress over the past two months shows that the young core’s potential is far from being realised.
Despite a rigorous schedule, the Sabers ranked 13th on Friday with 0.611 points since March 2. Overall, Buffalo’s point percentage saw its biggest improvement since 2015-16, which only occurred because the franchise suffered last season. The Sabers went 16-9-3 in March and April. They finished fifth out of eight teams in the Atlantic Division after being picked to finish bottom.
“To all the fans that came out tonight, I think we took it to heart not to let RJ and the fans in the building down,” Thompson said.
And the Sabers have achieved this despite a long list of injuries, a Covid-19 outbreak and Tuch’s late arrival. Craig Anderson, the team’s top goaltender, missed the last three games with an ongoing injury. Dustin Tokarski had to start both games of the back-to-back to finish the season.
Adding to Thompson’s breakthrough season, Skinner rebounded with 33 goals to give the Sabers their first 30-plus tandem since 2010-11. Victor Olofsson and Kyle Okposo both reached the 20-goal mark, while Tuch set a new career record in points per game. It seems that every player on the team, regardless of experience, has improved under coach Don Granato and his staff.
The Sabers’ 229 goals were the most in the franchise since they last made the playoffs in 2010-11. Most of the squad, as well as the entire coaching staff and management team, will be back next season.
The Sabers seemed to win back much of their disaffected fan base with the same unrelenting work ethic as the franchise’s best teams. Unlike at the start of the season, fans will no longer come to games in jerseys with the names of the team’s former core players on them. Now you see Dahlin, Thompson, Cozens, Tuch and Power among others.
The excitement has reached the other team in town. Bill’s first-round pick Kaair Elam attended the game with a dozen of his new teammates, including Josh Allen. The crowd roared as the group was shown playing in a suite.
It was a party at the KeyBank Center, topped by the Sabers greeting their fans from the ice at the center. And while it will be the last time until hockey returns in the fall, they showed the crowd there should be more to celebrate in the near future.
“You can only hope to win people over [over] loving it like we do,” Granato said. “I’m trying to create an environment that helps our players find that passion to play, and we know that’s what the building will feel like if we can play like that. And when the building feels like this, it becomes something very special. We’re still building, but I love how our guys have been moving towards that this year.”
Here are more observations from the finale
Tokarski delivered another courageous performance under difficult circumstances. He made 27 saves in Thursday’s 5-0 loss to Boston and had little time to rest before the start of the final. His breakaway stop against Sam Lafferty came just before Power’s equalizer.
Domanik Kubalik and Dylan Strome scored for Chicago (28-42-12), which went 2-1 through the latter’s goal and remained 10:27 after regulation time.
The Sabers could have simply kept Aaron Dell on the roster to support Tokarski with Anderson unavailable, but the club chose to reward Michael Houser’s dedication and perseverance. Houser, 29, was recalled from Cincinnati Friday after a 42-saver playoff shutout for the Cyclones. It was about three months earlier that Houser was prevented from playing at least one other game with the Sabers after testing positive for Covid-19.
Similarly, the Sabers returned Pysyk to the lineup on defense to replace Casey Fitzgerald, who joined the Amerks.
Kyle Okposo came to the arena early Friday as he does before every game. However, he was not preparing to play. A lower body injury prevented the 34-year-old winger from competing with his teammates in the final. But Okposo wanted to be with the rest of the Sabers to immerse themselves in the final night of their seven-month journey.
Okposo was announced ahead of the game as the recipient of the Sabers’ Rick Martin Award, which fans vote on.
“You miss your greatest leader in Kyle,” Granato said with a mixture of pride and sadness.
Injured Sabers goalie Malcolm Subban, a native of Toronto, sang a stellar rendition of the US national anthem before the game, drawing smiles from his teammates and thunderous applause from the crowd. Subban suffered a season-ending injury on January 11 but has remained with the team. He is a pending unrestricted free agent.
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