Coming off two wins at home, the Sabres were in Dallas tonight to kick off a tough Central Division road trip. We started sloppy but got a fantastic 3-2 win in overtime!
The Sabres started the game in a hole early as Jamie Benn scored for the Stars on the power play just 1:48 into the game, with Tage Thompson in the box for high sticking. Buffalo answered back with Rasmus Dahlin scoring on a nice one timer from the blue line and firing it past Oettinger with 8:31 left in the period, tying the game up 1-1. Decent enough period with Buffalo cleaning it up in the later half of the period. The Sabres looked very sloppy early and Craig Anderson playing well between the pipes was huge, stopping a lot of big chances for the Stars to score as we got outplayed significantly early on, by an expected goal rate of 2.03-0.51, so we got lucky to go into the first intermission tied at 1-1.
We played much better in the second period, in a pretty even period with a scoreless 20 minutes without many great scoring chances to keep the game at 1-1 through two periods.
To start the third period, with some quick passing from Tage Thompson, to Jeff Skinner over to Victor Olofsson who one-timed the puck into the back of the net to give the Sabres our first lead of the game, just 1:44 into the third. That goal extended Goalofsson’s streak to four straight games. With their lines rolled, the Stars tied the game up a few minutes later, with 14:02 left in the third with Jason Robertson getting right in front as the Sabres got four defensemen drawn out to the board. A typical defensive breakdown for this team that we see way too often lately. Both teams had a good amount of chances, but we head to overtime tied up 2-2.
In overtime, Tage Thompson dished the puck over to Owen Power backhanded as the rookie scored his first goal of the year with a one-timer just 56 seconds into OT to get the Sabres a win.
Final: Sabres 3, Stars 2
Especially with how lousy the Sabres looked in the first half of the first period, it was huge to stay in the game with Craig Anderson making some huge saves for us. We brought it back though and in a very evenly-matched game, we got the win. Really solid team effort. We got slightly outshot 31-25 and were outplayed by an expected goal rate of 3.77-1.69 but still got the win!
Three wins in a row for the boys. Right back at it tomorrow night in St. Louis.
Let’s Go Sabres!
Please follow me:
Instagram: @atownszone
Twitter: @atownszone
TikTok: @atownszone
If you like the site and my work, share it with your friends!
… and tell Dave Portnoy to hire me…
A Town's Zone 