BUFFALO, N.Y. — After taking game one in the team's home and home series with the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night, the Buffalo Sabres came out in the second meeting at the KeyBank Center on Friday, night struggling to find an offensive rhythm falling to an early 3-0 deficit after the first period.
"They outworked us in that first period for sure and that's not something we're gonna take lightly and that's not something we should ever be saying after a game," Sabres captain and forward, Kyle Okposo said.
"I thought we got outworked," Sabres forward Casey Mittelstadt said. "It's pretty hard to sit here and try to make excuses. There are really no excuses. That was a poor effort from us for sure."
Buffalo fell into a 2-goal deficit within the first two minutes of the game after Philadelphia's Scott Laughton and Louie Delpedio beat Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to find the back of the net.
Luukkonen made 38 saves in the team's win on Wednesday but only made 14 saves in his first loss as Buffalo's starting goaltender on Friday night.
"I don't think we played with enough urgency right away," Okposo said. "We know that team comes out and works and we have to match your work ethic and play with a purpose. We just couldn't get going to start, then we were behind the eight ball and we just couldn't catch up from there."
Sabres head coach Don Granato emphasized the need to be more "decisive and direct" as the team looks to move forward in the season.
"We could have scored but let's face it, we didn't play the way we needed to play," Granato said. "It starts with playing faster, more direct, we were not direct enough and that was the difference in the game."
"We weren't decisive, direct, and when you're doing that, you're putting pucks where you can pressure them and when you're not, you're overhandling pucks and overhandling tonight cost us."
Now, with the loss, the Sabres fall to 12-2-1 in the retro red and black goathead jerseys and Philadelphia has handed Buffalo both of those losses.
The Sabres do not have much time to dwell on the loss as the team will be headed to take on the Toronto Maple Leafs for a rivalry matchup on Saturday night at 7:00 pm.