The Sabres met, talked, watched video and then skated for 30 minutes today in HSBC Arena before heading for Montreal and Tuesday night's matchup with the Canadiens. The big message was to forget Sunday's collapse against Nashville -- but also to learn from it as well.
"It was a bad situation," said goaltender Ryan Miller. "You completely own up to that, get a point and move forward. If we start hanging our heads and beating ourselves up, it's going to spin into something else and that doesn't need to happen. It's a long season. We're down to the crunch time of it and everything is magnified."
"They realized to put all that work in and to give it away to make the mistakes we made was unacceptable," added coach Lindy Ruff. "They know that. Mistakes are part of the game. We take a lot of pride in being a smarter team. We made a couple mistakes we don't want to make again."
Miller bolted off the ice after Martin Erat's overtime goal went into the net (think Dominik Hasek-Darius Kasparaitis circa 2001), and was quickly out of the locker room after reporters were let in.
"I did not like the way that played out," Miller said today. "I thought a 3-1 lead with under three minutes left and to lose? Unacceptable. On every front. Top down. So I got out of there quick and didn't talk because I had nothing good to say. Maybe you guys wanted to hear something from me but it wasn't going to be good or productive. It wasn't going to be positive."
On the injury front, Steve Montador (lower body) skated some but left early because his lower-body injury was still troublesome so he's almost certainly going to be out again tomorrow. Patrick Lalime (knee) was also on the ice before the main practice began. Ruff said Jochen Hecht (upper body) is improving and could return this weekend.
Here's audio from Ruff and Miller after today's practice.
Lindy Ruff
Ryan Miller
---Mike Harrington
(www.twitter.com/bnharrington)
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