Sabres Squash the Spirit in St. Louis

Ironically the last time Buffalo won in St. Louis two days after Christmas 2009 it was by the same 5-3 score as last night when the Blues were sporting their Reverse Retro sweaters.

Mr. Skinner scored first as he reaches 20 goals for the ninth time in his career off of a beautiful pass from Mr. Thompson perfectly placed in the slot as Mr. Skinner uncontested snapped one in for the 1-0 lead exactly one minute into the game.

Only 25 seconds later the top line scores again with Mr. Tuch putting in his 23rd goal of the season off of another excellent pass this time from behind the net to earn his 90th point in his 97th game playing for Buffalo.

Immediately after this goal, St. Louis uses their time-out to take a breather and it worked for about ten minutes until rookie defenseman Mr. Power scored to give Buffalo the 3-0 lead.

The second period started out with Buffalo continuing to score as Mr. Thompson netted his 33rd goal to build Buffalo’s lead to 4-0 and Mr. Tuch with the primary assist earns his 91st point as he passes Sabres current color analyst Mr. Ray on the all-time Sabres scoring list.

Just as the announcer quips “Look out Luukkonen” the Blues score twice in a couple of minutes before the halfway point of the period and Buffalo tightens it up and closes out the period strong.

In the third period, St. Louis gets within one as they score with plenty of time remaining but Mr. Luukkonen was playing large and with 2:37 left the Blues pulled their goalie then with 106 seconds remaining they go on the power play creating a 6-on-4 advantage.

The advantage really is Buffalo’s because they can just shoot the puck down the ice at the empty net with no fear of icing.

From a Buffalo zone corner a Blues player passes blindly towards the slot where Mr. Cozens intercepts, bounces the puck off of the dasher board to himself, and then backhands it up towards the empty net from the red line scoring with 59.8 seconds remaining in the game.

Buffalo beat the Blues 5-3 to win back-to-back road games and head to Winnipeg for the third game Thursday night in this four-game road trip concluding Saturday night in Minnesota.