Postgame Report | Sabres' winning streak comes to an end in Ottawa

OTTAWA -Zemgus Girgensons scored the lone goal for the Sabres in a 3-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators inside Canadian Tire Centre on Monday.
The loss snapped a six-game winning streak for the Sabres, who were playing the second game of a back-to-back set and their third game in four nights.
"I think they had a lot of energy and credit to them for having that," Girgensons said. "I think we were maybe a little fatigued. ... But I think we gave pushes. I don't think it's anything to do with our effort. I think guys put in good work today and we did have our looks to tie it up, too."

Craig Anderson made 30 saves.
The Sabres finished with a 34-33 advantage in shot attempts but went 0-for-3 on the power play. The Senators scored on their lone power play of the night.

How it happened

PERIOD 1
Tim Stutzle put the Senators on the board just 47 seconds into the contest, capitalizing on a rebound after forcing a turnover in the corner of the Buffalo zone.
JJ Peterka and Rasmus Dahlin drew penalties 20 seconds apart to give the Sabres a 5-on-3 power play that lasted 1:40 and carried into the second period, but the Senators held them off the board.
"A lot of guys did not feel themselves," Sabres coach Don Granato said. "You could tell that. You could see that on the bench, you could feel it with them. They didn't look like themselves and you could see they just weren't sharp. I think the power play early and the 5-on-3 depicted everything. We complicated what should have been really simple. We had time and space and we just couldn't make the simple play."
PERIOD 2
Mattias Samuelsson delivered a stretch pass to set up Girgensons' breakaway goal, which tied the score 6:51 into the period.

Jacob Lucchini scored his first NHL goal on the power play to put the Senators back ahead less than five minutes later. The Sabres came within 14 seconds of killing the penalty - their first of the night - before Lucchini buried a rebound off of Anderson's pads.
PERIOD 3
Thompson nearly tied the score with a shot that rang off the crossbar with just under eight minutes remaining. The Sabres finished the period with 10 shots, including a late one-timer for Victor Olofsson from the slot, but were unable to push the tying goal past Senators goaltender Anton Forsberg.
"We tried to fight through it, obviously," Granato said. "Generated enough. I thought their goaltender was very good. We generated enough to potentially win that game but we just weren't sharp."
Stutzle added an empty-net goal with 1:11 remaining to increase Ottawa's lead.

What we learned

1.Girgensons tallied his third point in the last three games. Granato lauded the play of the Sabres' alternate captain along with linemates Peyton Krebs and Kyle Okposo.
"I thought they set a tone early, and a tone unfortunately I don't think the rest of the group could even get up to," he said. "It was no coincidence that they scored the goal. Those three guys worked hard for us."
2.Thompson felt the Sabres spent too much time feeding into the Senators' pressure.
"Give them credit, they played a hard game," he said. "They were physical, they were in your face all night. Took time and space away from us. When that happens you've got to simplify. You've got to keep it really simple and we didn't do that.
"We passed pucks right into their pressure and gave them easy turnover, and that's where they got a lot of their offense. So, we made the game hard on ourselves and easy for them."
3.The Sabres have split the first two games of their three-game road trip, which concludes in Washington on Tuesday.
"I think we're going in there to try and make a statement," Thompson said. "We don't like the game we played tonight and me in particular. I think next game is a big response game for all of us."

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Up next

The road trip concludes in Washington on Tuesday. Coverage on MSG begins at 6:30 p.m. The puck drops at 7 on MSG and WGR 550.