The Buffalo Sabres are facing some hard truths.

After an ugly, unsightly and downright distasteful loss to Washington on Tuesday night, the players walked into the dressing room and told each other what many on the outside are also saying.

The players said they are soft. They said they are lazy. They said they are easy to play against. They said they’ve got to be more physical. They said they’ve got to be hungrier.

Obviously, those are strong words. They needed to be said after the 4-2 loss to the Capitals, which seemed like it should have been more in the 12-1 range.

But even the toughest words are still just words. It’s time for more.

“That’s great, that’s great,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said sarcastically of the players’ desire to “look in the mirror.”

“I want to see the action. I don’t want to have to give them a two-hour practice tomorrow. I don’t want to grind them into the ice. That should come from them. That should come from them. You saw the effort.”

Actually, there was little effort. Aside from inspired third periods by Paul Gaustad and Adam Mair, the best show by someone employed by the Sabres came from Ruff.

There was a commercial timeout with about two minutes left in the second period, and the 18,690 fans in HSBC Arena were restless. They were giving mock cheers to Ryan Miller for making routine saves, and they were booing the Sabres for being in a 3-0 hole.

But if people thought the fans were angry, they should have seen Ruff. For the first part of the television break, he stood motionless with his arms crossed and lips curled, his eyes throwing darts at the lifeless players.

Ruff then started angrily shaking his head and walked toward assistant James Patrick at the end of the bench. After a few words, he walked back to the middle, shaking his head again and mumbling under his breath.

“You’ve got to be ready right from the start, and I just have no explanation why we couldn’t be more hungry and be more desperate and determined,” Sabres right wing Ales Kotalik said.

The one constant for the Sabres through the season — their penalty-kill unit — allowed a goal 1:57 into the game and another midway through the second period as the Capitals built a 3-0 lead.

All three goals came on rebounds, two of the large variety as pucks caromed off Miller’s pads directly to Capitals players.

“That wasn’t a very strong effort from every position, starting with myself,” Miller said. “Three rebound goals, I’m not thrilled.

“We need better than just average. I need to start elevating my game and paying attention to the little, tiny, small things that add up at the end of the night.”

Three Sabres decided to show up for the third period, as the line of Gaustad, Mair and Kotalik enlivened the crowd. They rattled Washington and the boards on a shift with 15 minutes left. Their next time out, they got the Sabres on the scoreboard. Gaustad, returning after missing five games with an upper- body injury, fed Mair alone in the slot. He went high to beat Jose Theodore.

The second goal came with 10 seconds left, when Clarke MacArthur’s power-play tally answered Boyd Gordon’s empty-netter with 42 seconds to go.

But other than that, the rest of the night was just words and no action.

“When you do see those guys do it,” winger Jason Pominville said of the Mair line, “you say to yourself, ‘Why weren’t you?’ It just wasn’t there.”