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Sabres send Avalanche to yet another loss

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Sam Reinhart and Evander Kane scored, Robin Lehner made 23 saves and the Sabres defeated the Avalanche, 2-0.

After getting called out by starting goalie Robin Lehner the Buffalo Sabres have bounced back with two consecutive wins, including their 2-0 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night.

Sam Reinhart scored what proved to be the game-winner, while Evander Kane scored his fifth goal in the past five games to provide the offense.

Lehner stopped all 23 shots he faced to record his second shutout of the season.

While it is a nice little turnaround for the Sabres, the big story out of this one is the continued misery of the Avalanche this season as they remain stuck at the bottom of the NHL standings, and by a pretty significant margin.

They also remain on track to be the worst team in the salary cap era.

Their loss on Thursday extends their current losing streak to five games.

As bad as that is, the big picture outlook is significantly worse than just a simple five-game losing streak.

In late November the Avalanche were 3-2 winners over the Columbus Blue Jackets to bring their record to 9-9-0 on the season. Nothing to be too terribly excited about, but at least a .500 record and maybe looking like a team that could improve after a couple of disappointing seasons in a row.

Since that game against Columbus, the Avalanche have gone just 6-29-2 in the 37 games that have followed.

Their current points percentage of .291 would be the worst the NHL has seen since the league went to the three-point game format at the start of the 2005-06 season.

Just for comparisons sake, the 2013-14 and 2014-15 Sabres, regarded as one of the worst non-expansion teams in recent league history as they gutted their roster in an attempt to rebuild from the ground up, had points percentages of .317 and .329.

The Avalanche are currently on pace for only 47 points this season.

With the NHL trade deadline fast approaching, it is worth wondering if they will make a significant move involving one of their core pieces and trade either Gabriel Landeskog or Matt Duchene.

Thursday’s game featured scouts or executives from 16 different teams (17 if you include the Vegas Golden Knights), including three from Toronto.