POSTGAME NOTEBOOK: Caps 3, Sabres 2 (SO)

Ain't That Pretty At All - Saturday night's Caps-Sabres game from Buffalo wasn't a scintillating and enthralling affair. It was two banged up teams playing for the second time in as many nights, in a half empty arena, and with weather not fit for man nor beast howling just outside. It was the Caps trying to bounce back from a loss and a rare subpar outing the night before against Pittsburgh, and it was the Sabres trying to shake a lengthy slide with a rookie goaltender starting and playing for the second time in as many nights.

When it was all said and done, the Caps were 3-2 shootout winners, thanks to Martin Fehervary's tying goal in the third period and T.J. Oshie's decisive strike in the postgame skills competition.
For the first time this season, the Caps played without Tom Wilson and they took to the ice missing fully a third of their regular lineup, with six key skaters - five of them forwards - on the sidelines. Seeking to stop a six-game skid, the Sabres cast their lot with 22-year-old rookie goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who was a tough luck loser to the Rangers the night before in a 2-1 setback.
Buffalo has eight wins on the season, with Craig Anderson and Dustin Tokarski owning four victories each. But neither Anderson (upper body) nor Tokarski (COVID-19 protocol) were available to the Sabres, who opted to go with Luukkonen for a second straight night rather than entrusting the netminding duties to Aaron Dell (0-5-0 with a 4.51 GAA and .872 save pct. on the season) or recently acquired Malcolm Subban, who left his Sabres debut with an injury a week earlier, after yielding six goals in 50 minutes of work against Carolina.
In the aftermath of that Friday night loss to the Blueshirts, the NHL informed the Sabres that Victor Olofsson's tying goal with 57 seconds remaining in regulation against the Rangers should have actually counted. If the correct call had been made in that game, Buffalo would have been all even at 2-2 with the Blueshirts late in the third, and the Sabres might have entered Saturday's game seeking to start a small winning streak.
Instead, the Sabres fell behind early on Lars Eller's second goal in as many nights off a sweet set-up from former Sabre Conor Sheary. Buffalo got that one back on a Vinnie Hinostroza breakaway late in the first, and the Sabres grabbed the lead on Will Butcher's goal from the slot early in the second. Buffalo tilted the ice on the Caps on the middle period, but it ran into some late penalty trouble in the second.
While Washington wasn't able to muster the equalizer on the man-advantage during a carryover double-minor to Buffalo's Kyle Okposo, the Caps did engineer a shift in momentum in the third period. That led to an outpouring of 17 shots on the Buffalo net in the third, and Fehervary's game-tying one-timer off a primary tee-up from Alex Ovechkin, his third primary assist in a span of four Washington goals.
Fehervary departed Friday's game early after taking a high hit from Pittsburgh's Brock McGinn, and his presence in Saturday's lineup wasn't a given until warm-ups. But Fehervary is a tough kid, and he was in the thick of things as much as on any other night, leading all players on both sides with seven hits, just three shy of Buffalo's team total of 10.
"It's nice for Marty," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "He does a lot of work on the ice, and there's not a lot of offense that comes with it. Some guys score all the time and it's a bit more common. But it's nice to see him get rewarded with a big goal like that, because he plays so hard every night."
In the shootout, the Sabres hit a couple of posts and the Caps scored a couple of goals. The Caps packed the two points on the plane and headed home for a day of rest on Sunday.
Wall Of Denial - If not for Luukkonen's efforts in the Buffalo crease, the Caps might have won Saturday's game in regulation. Early in the third, he made a diving stop on Evgeny Kuznetsov's rebound try during a Washington power play. Later in the final period and with the score square at 2-2, he made a dazzling and athletic right pad stop to deny a Sheary shot that was nearly as dazzling in its resourcefulness and execution; the Caps winger managed to put a backhand shot on net with his back to the net, and as he was falling to the ice.
"I didn't really know he saved it," recounts Sheary. "I thought it hit the post. I watched it again. I just saw the puck bounce to the far side [of the net] and I just kind of dove at it and swiped at it, but an incredible save. He made a couple of them in the third and kept them in it."
The Sabres' second-round pick (54th overall) in the 2017 NHL Draft, Luukkonen was the second goaltender drafted in '17, and the second one from that draft class the Caps have faced in as many Saturday nights; they found their way past Columbus' Daniil Tarasov by a 3-1 count a week earlier.
With the advent of analytics, coaches are hesitant to start the same goaltender in back-to-back games these days, and it makes a lot of sense. But it also sometimes makes sense to buck that trend, as Buffalo's Don Granato did on Saturday. Luukkonen gave Buffalo a chance to win both of its games this weekend, stopping 69 of the 73 shots he faced.
In three starts this week, Luukkonen allowed two goals in each and lost each.
"The efforts were outstanding, the wins will follow," says Granato. "The effort was great; he deserved a win. It didn't happen and you just keep moving forward. But I'm very happy for him and happy to see the progress. This was a big step forward for him."
Luukkonen helped Finland to World Junior gold in 2019, but has had to deal with some injuries since. Now in in third season as a pro, the 6-foot-5, 217-pound netminder looks to have a bright future, and the Caps can expect to see much more of him in the months and seasons ahead. Even when Anderson and Tokarski return, Luukkonen could stay with the Sabres and see some more starts.
"He definitely could, he definitely could," says Granato. "But he won't come out of a development phase - he's 22 … his ceiling is really high, he's not even close to it."
Win -Caps goalie Vitek Vanecek was also solid, and he made sure to kiss the goalposts that helped him out in the shootout. When Washington drafted Vanecek in the second round (39th overall) of the 2014 NHL Draft, it traded a third-rounder in that '14 draft to Buffalo to be able to move up five slots (from 44 to 39) to take Vanecek. The Sabres used the pick to take defenseman Brycen Martin, but any remorse over the deal
At this time last year, Vanecek had yet to make his NHL debut. He did that in Buffalo on Jan. 15, earning a 2-1 win over the Sabres, and he has hardly paused for a breath since against the NHL's Western New York franchise. With Saturday night's win, Vanecek improves to 7-1-1 lifetime against Buffalo, and he is a perfect 4-0-0 with a shutout and just six goals against in four career starts at KeyBank Center.
Down On The Farm - For the first time in over two weeks, the AHL Hershey Bears were back in action on Saturday night, facing the Baby Pens in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. After a lengthy pause to recover from a COVID-19 outbreak, the Bears beat the Baby Pens 3-2 in overtime.
Hershey won Saturday's game despite leading for a total of just 28 seconds early in the second period.
The Pens struck first, and Hershey pulled even on Bobby Nardella's first goal of the season at 8:18 of the first period, with a single assist from Mike Vecchione.
With the Bears on the power play early in the second, Cody Franson staked them to a 2-1 lead at 3:23. Joe Snively and Matt Moulson assisted on Franson's third of the season, a goal that pushed Hershey to a 2-1 advantage.
But WBS answered back just 28 seconds later, and the two rivals remained deadlocked for the rest of regulation and well into overtime, a span of more than 40 minutes of playing time.
Finally at 4:09 of the extra session, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby scored his fourth of the season with help from Vecchione, lifting the Bears to victory in their first game since Nov. 26. Pheonix Copley stopped 28 of 30 shots in the Hershey nets to improve to 5-4-1 on the season.
The 9-6-2-1 Bears are back in action on Sunday afternoon when they host the Laval Rocket at Giant Center.
By The Numbers - John Carlson led the Caps with 26:04 in ice time … Ovechkin led the Caps with six shots on net and 16 shot attempts … Eight different Caps blocked a single shot to share the team lead … Sliding into the lineup in Wilson's absence, Mike Sgarbossa won six of 10 draws (60 percent) on a night in which Washington won only 23 of 60 (38 percent) of its face-offs.