Exhausted Blue Jackets get walked by the Buffalo Sabres

The Blue Jackets ran into a buzzsaw on Saturday night. Playing in their third game in four nights, they faced a Buffalo Sabres team that was in a bad mood and out for blood. The end result wasn't pretty, but the repercussions could go farther than just the outcome of this game.

The Sabres drew first blood thanks to a poorly defended rush play. Jack Quinn was allowed to skate uncontested through the slot and pick up his own rebound, before burying it behind Jet Greaves to open the scoring.

Despite being heavily outplayed in the period, the Jackets would find the equalizer with just 4 minutes left thanks to Kent Johnson, who fired home his team-leading 8th goal of the season from the high slot. Unfortunately, that was as close as they could get.

The Sabres scored to take the lead just 2:10 later. Heading into the first intermission having been badly outplayed, the Jackets were only behind by one goal. However, the tired legs were evident, and it was somewhat obvious what was about to happen.

Buffalo rattled off three goals in the second to blow the game wide open, taking a 5-1 lead into the second intermission. The biggest stat here might have been the shots on goal. They led 33-18 after two periods, which more than tells the story on this night.

The Jackets made the game look more respectable by playing hard in the third period and getting one goal back. Zach Werenski fired his second goal in as many nights into the net, but it was too little, too late.

Any good take aways?

Playing three games in four nights is always going to be a big ask for any NHL team. However, it's worth adding that these games were against Colorado, Dallas, and Buffalo-teams that finished 1st, 3rd, and 4th in the NHL standings last year.

They are all elite teams, and the Sabres were not happy with their most recent performance. They were able to sit around and wait for a full day off, while the Jackets played the night before and had to travel in.

I'm not here to make excuses, but it's a simple fact. The odds were stacked up against them last night. They battled about as hard as we could have expected them to, and it's probably best to just write this game off as a learning opportunity.

One other thing that stood out to me is the goaltending. Jet Greaves clearly does not look like himself so far this season. I'm far from pinning the loss on him in a game where he faced 33 shots through two periods. But, it's worth noting that he just looks a touch slower right now. He isn't bailing this team out like he did last year.

Costly loss.

The bigger story coming out of this game is the two players who did not finish it. Sean Monahan left the bench in the second period after taking a slap-shot off of his knee. Dmitri Voronkov left in the third period while clutching his left side, maybe lower back?

Post-game, Rick Bowness did not have an update on either. We'll watch in the coming days to see if these were just precautionary, or if either of these guys will miss some time.

The Jackets will have a couple of days off to recover, with no games until Tuesday night. Lets hope they can recouperate and get ready for revenge against the Florida Panthers.

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