Penguins/Sabres Preseason Game Takeaways Following 3-2 Pittsburgh Loss

As far as exhibitions go, this was definitely one of them

The Penguins and Buffalo Sabres went at it on Tuesday night. Here were the lines, it was a very grindy type of group for Pittsburgh up front.

As usual the end result (a 3-2 Buffalo win) doesn’t matter all that much, but the individual performances along the way still do.

To that end, Jack St. Ivany stepped up and played a confident game. It‘s not his game to be scoring from in tight by the goal normally, but speaks to strong form to jump in and make something happen.

It was nice to see Kevin Hayes show is stuff and show what a true NHL goal scorer looked like. There weren’t too many out there on either side. Also nice to see Cody Glass lug the puck all the way up the ice and find a lot of space to work with in the middle of the ice.

Linemate Rutger McGroarty almost scored on the power play. Almost doesn’t count but it comes close on a night the Pittsburgh PP was 0-for-5.

Anthony Beauvillier had a team-high six shots on goal on the evening.

Joel Blomqvist got a measure of revenge against guys in a Buffalo jersey, after getting baptized with six goals in 26 minutes on Saturday by the Sabres nearly full NHL squad. Blomqvist played the second half of tonight‘s game and found some redemption along the way, stopping all 11 shots he saw, though the Sabre roster was not as strong for this game.

On the flip side for the more unimpressive or unfortunate nights, Sam Poulin’s biggest contributions to the evening was taking the team‘s only two minor penalties. Sebastian Aho has mostly impressed this camp with his steady play but he didn’t acquit himself well on the PK losing a battle in front and his feet for Buffalo‘s go ahead goal. In the for what it‘s worth category, Aho ended up being on the ice for all three Sabres goals.

There were a few unfortunate incidents in the injury category as well. Filip Kral left the game in the third period with what looked like a lower body foot/ankle area injury. Jonathan Gruden also left the game at some point in the third period with an issue not as obvious. Neither of those two were in-line to make the NHL team out of camp but it would be minor blows if either of those situations end up with a time-missing ailment.

Other than that, nothing too Earth shattering or unexpected from tonight’s game. Another step to check off as the team moves deeper into practices. No more preseason games for the Pens until a back-to-back this weekend on Saturday and Sunday.