5 takeaways | Sabres shut out in loss to Capitals

Sam Reinhart remained steadfast in his belief in the Buffalo Sabres dressing room following a 6-0 loss to the Washington Capitals at KeyBank Center on Monday.
"I love the group of guys," Reinhart said. "Love the coach. The result isn't good enough."
Reinhart echoed the sentiments of fellow alternate captain Kyle Okposo and coach Ralph Krueger, who painted a picture of a team working together to find a path out of its slump but ultimately struggling to string together a positive result.

The Sabres are winless in their last 11 games (0-9-2) and have been shut out in two straight contests.
"Guys care, it's just not happening right now," Okposo said. "I don't know how else to put it. It's just, it's tough. We're in a really tough spot here. Guys are trying and it's just not working."
Here are five takeaways from the game.

1. Capitals earn first-period lead

The Capitals played to 13-2 shot advantage during the first period. They were held off the board for most of the period thanks in part to key saves from Carter Hutton, including a breakaway stop on T.J. Oshie.
The Capitals opened the scoring with 1:14 to go in the period, seconds after the conclusion of their first power play, when Evgeny Kuznetsov beat Hutton with a wrist shot from the half wall.
Krueger said the team addressed its own offense during the first intermission, with a focus on trying to generate second chance looks.
"It's absolutely unacceptable," Krueger said. "I mean, we spoke about it after the first. For all the opportunities that were there, we were too complicated, and we need to simplify. I mean, we had multiple opportunities to bring pucks to the net, bodies to the net. We didn't do it."

2. Mistakes mount during the second

The game slipped away from the Sabres as mistakes piled up during the second period.
Oshie deked his way past Rasmus Dahlin and Colin Miller on his way to setting up a Nicklas Backstrom goal that made it 2-0. Turnovers led to goals for Richard Panik and Daniel Sprong, the latter of which was scored on a breakaway.
"They got the lead and the game ran away from us," Krueger said.

3. Missed chances on offense

Krueger pointed to a 3-on-1 rush that ended with an errant pass from Jeff Skinner to Casey Mittelstadt as a microcosm of the Sabres' woes on scoring chances this season.
"We missed the net on multiple opportunities alone in front of the net, they're putting it right under the crossbar," Krueger said. "That's the difference right now to the final results."
The Sabres finished with an 11-5 edge in high-danger chances, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, but struggled to make life difficult on rookie goaltender Vitek Vanecek. Skinner missed the net on an odd-man rush during the third period. Taylor Hall saw a pass skip off his stick on a potential breakaway.
"I think that's been a big problem for us, is burying our offensive opportunities," Okposo said. "I've never seen it through 27 games like the way it's gone with essentially everybody. It's just unfortunate. It's tough, it's tough right now."

4. Lineup notes

Dylan Cozens missed a second straight game with an upper-body injury. Rasmus Asplund joined the lineup in place of Cody Eakin, who was a healthy scratch, and skated 14:17.
Hutton made his second straight start in net, making 24 saves on 30 shots.

5. The big picture

The Sabres hit the halfway point of the season following Tuesday's game against the New Jersey Devils, a team that will be looking to snap an 11-game winless streak on home ice.
"We have no time to think about this," Krueger said. "What we need to do is react. And we will do that, and we will work towards that now."