Game one of the NHL preseason can often look like a dog’s breakfast; lineups are liberally dotted with youthful players and the veterans on both sides are seeking to shake off an offseason’s worth of rust. That was certainly the case early in Sunday’s preseason opener between the Capitals and the Sabres on Sunday at Capital One Arena, but once the two sides settled in, the game became more entertaining.
Results are less important than the process in the preseason, but the Caps ended up on the short end of a 4-3 shootout decision. As you’d expect from a first exhibition match, there were both good and not so good elements to both teams’ games.
“I liked the penalty kill,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “[Goaltender Hunter Shepard] was outstanding. I liked that last half of that third period. We go down in the third, and we were on our heels obviously trying to protect the lead in that third period there.
“And then I thought we controlled play. We go down in the game and we’ve got to dig ourselves out just to get that thing tied, and I thought we controlled play for probably nine minutes and were pressing to win that game in regulation.
“There’s certainly a lot of things that we need to clean up, but that’s to be expected in the first preseason game.”
Washington led 2-0 into the late minutes of the second period on the strength of a first-period goal from Nicolas Aube-Kubel and a second-period marker from Ryan Hofer. Sonny Milano tied the game in the third period after Buffalo erupted for three straight goals in a span of just over 13 minutes of playing time.
Shepard was sharp in net, stopping all 18 shots he faced before departing shortly after the middle point of the middle period. Six of Shepard’s stops came while the Sabres were on the power play.
Penalties were plentiful in the early going; the Caps had to kill off consecutive Buffalo power plays before the first television timeout and they were tasked with three full two-minute kills in the front half of the first frame. Washington was whistled for five minor penalties in the game, and three of those infractions took place in the offensive zone.
In the back half of the first, Shepard made one of his best stops, denying Tyson Jost from in tight after a giveaway behind the Washington net. Less than a minute later, the Caps took the lead on an offensive-zone sequence. From the left point, Lucas Johansen put the puck to the net. The shot was blocked, and the puck bounced to Caps center Riley Sutter, who quickly bumped it to the slot for Aube-Kubel, who staked the Caps to a 1-0 lead at 14:52.
Midway through the second, the Caps doubled their lead with a forechecking goal just 14 seconds after a draw at the red line. The Caps put some forechecking heat on the Sabres behind the Buffalo net, leading to a Henry Rybinski shot from the slot. Buffalo goaltender Eric Comrie stopped that one, but he couldn’t stop Hofer’s backhander on the rebound.
“it was a great play by my linemates, setting up the forecheck.” recounts Hofer. “I was just trying to get to the net, and thankfully it went in.”
JJ Peterka put Buffalo on the board with 4:02 left in the second, scoring from below the goal line on a second chance opportunity after Caps goalie Clay Stevenson denied the initial bid with a nifty right pad stop. Stevenson relieved Shepard in the second.
Buffalo struck twice in the front half of the third, tying the game at 1:19 when Peyton Krebs tipped home a floater from center point and taking the lead when Zach Benson – the 13th overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft – scored at 8:59.
Washington lost blueliner Trevor van Riemsdyk at that point of the contest; he appeared to take a puck to his upper body just before the Benson goal; he was clearly ailing as the play evolved and he exited the ice and went straight down the tunnel after the goal. Carbery said the veteran defenseman will be evaluated further on Monday.
The Caps rallied on a well-placed shot from Milano at 12:31. After taking a feed from linemate Anthony Mantha at the Buffalo line, Milano fired a laser of a shot to the top right corner to beat veteran journeyman Dustin Tokarski, who opened the third period in the Buffalo crease after taking over from Comrie.
[A Buffalo defender] was coming on me, so I just ripped it under his stick,” says Milano. “I didn’t really aim; just tried to get it on net, and it went in.”
Washington had a number of chances to retake the lead late in regulation, the best of which was likely Matthew Phillips’ look at a yawning cage from the left circle with less than five minutes remaining. Buffalo blueliner Kale Clague blocked that bid, the first of three shot blocks he made in the final five minutes of regulation.
Buffalo’s Brandon Biro scored the deciding tally in the shootout.
Again, it was a typical mixed bag of a preseason opener.
“I liked a lot of things, when I look back,” says Carbery. “There were instances I felt like for every line. Sonny Milano makes a big play. We also had some struggle shifts in the defensive zone, and then we had a really good sequence with [Hendrix] Lapierre’s line. [Riley] Sutter, I would give him a lot of credit. He’s a big part of the penalty kill and he was outstanding on draws today [winning 11 of 16, 69%, nice], same thing with [Dylan Strome, who had identical face-off numbers to Sutter’s]. I liked Stromer’s game tonight.
“We’ll do a deep dive into the film and really get into the structural stuff, and then the individual things to clean up.”
