It’s taken a mere three regular season games for the Buffalo Sabres to firmly establish themselves as a doormat for the rest of the league.

The Sabres were downright outclassed by the Anaheim Ducks, 5-1 Monday afternoon at the First Niagara Center in a contest that amazingly wasn’t as close as the lopsided final score indicated.  Had goaltender Michael Neuvirth not made a barrage of difficult saves in his first start of the season, the Ducks legitimately could’ve reached double-digit goals.

Speaking of double digits, the Sabres barely reached that threshold in shots on net in managing just 12 against Frederik Anderson.  Meanwhile Anaheim pelted Neuvirth with 44 as Buffalo’s now surrendered 131 shots in three regulation losses to start the season.

Following the Anaheim onslaught, Sabres head coach Ted Nolan found no bright spots

“Sometimes if you’ve got nothing good to say it’s better not to say too much,” Sabres head coach Ted Nolan told reporters before going on to say plenty. “Especially after an outing like this…it was like a NHL team playing against a pee wee team. They dominated us from start to finish. They did all the right things and we did everything that we could do wrong—we did wrong.”

Already on the short end of the talent ledger long before the puck dropped, Buffalo did themselves no favors in taking four penalties in the first period.  While Corey Perry netted Anaheim’s lone power play tally, constantly killing penalties eradicated any chance the Sabres had of gaining offensive momentum.

William Karlsson scored in the second period for the Ducks, but they led just 2-0 after 40 minutes despite a 29-7 advantage in shots.

The floodgates finally opened in the third period as Matt Beleskey and Karlsson scored his second of the game 18 seconds apart to build a four goal Anaheim lead.

Tyler Ennis broke the shutout for Buffalo at 6:36 of the third on a nice feed from Matt Moulson.

Ryan Kesler ended the scoring on a penalty shot at 12:25 after Sabres defensemen Andre Benoit hooked him from behind on a breakaway.

“We’ve all got to be one hundred percent better.” Neuvirth said.

After never starting a season 0-3 in franchise history Buffalo has now done it in consecutive years.  Last year they lost a franchise-record 51 games. By comparison to these first three contests, that team was a Stanley Cup contender.

The Sabres don’t have much time to wallow before playing in Carolina tomorrow night. After nearly making lineup changes prior to Anaheim before ultimately giving his team one more chance, Nolan made it clear the lineup is unlikely to be the same against the Hurricanes.

“I mentioned to the guys yesterday-- don’t confuse my patience with avoidance,” he said. “Never do that. It’s very frustrating to, say the least.  We’ll sort this out and find out who actually really wants to play. If we have to play two lines and four defense—so be it.”

Hockey news wasn’t all bad in Buffalo Monday.  Before the game in a press conference with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, it was announced that Buffalo will host the 2016 NHL Draft on June 24 and 25, 2016. It will be the third NHL Draft ever held in Buffalo, joining the 1991 (Buffalo Memorial Auditorium) and 1998 (Marine Midland Arena) drafts.

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