It was Fan Appreciation Night at KeyBank Center, and Housley emphasized the importance of his team having a strong performance in its final game in front of the home crowd. For the most part, he felt they came up short.
"I just think we didn't have enough investment from our players, particularly it being the last home game," Housley said. "We needed to be better, we needed to give more to our fans, and by the time we get a push it's too late.
"It's a broken record in that area where we're chasing games again. That's the disappointing part for me, because we talked about this after the Toronto game, we talked about this yesterday. We needed to have more investment from a lot of guys in our room."
Housley suggested that the Sabres approached the game as if it would be easy after O'Reilly's early goal, a sentiment echoed by Pominville. The Sabres were stranded in their own zone before McCormick tied the game on a tip, while Duchene was unchecked when he scored on a one-timer from the high slot.
Dzingel's goal, scored just 3:21 into the second period, came on a power play after Marco Scandella was penalized for tripping while defending a 2-on-1 rush.
"We got the lead, then they turned the switch," Pominville said. "It's almost like when we got the lead early we thought it was going to be an easy game and thought we were going to score a lot of goals and put on a show.
"But that's not the way we play, that's not the team we are. It hasn't been, it's not going to be. We've got to defend, we've got to chip and forecheck, get after them. When we get away from that we end up wasting energy in our own end and that's the result."
Kyle Okposo scored to bring the Sabres within one with 3:19 remaining in the second period, but the Senators tightened up defensively and held onto their lead in the third. Alexandre Burrows capped the scoring with an empty-net goal.