The Buffalo Sabres got the quick start they don’t usually get and used that to kickstart a 7-2 win against the Vegas Golden Knights.
BUFFALO — Ever since that blockbuster Jack Eichel trade, a Buffalo Sabres-Vegas Golden Knights game is an event in Western New York. Two seasons ago it was a party for the Sabres defeating Eichel’s new team. Last season was Eichel’s redemption when he scored a hat trick in a Vegas win.
This time around, without Eichel in the Golden Knights lineup, the Sabres delivered a complete game in a 7-2 victory.
Ever since the start of 2024, we’ve seen a bit of a different Sabres team than the one we watched for the first three months. The Sabres we’ve watched of late better resemble the one we saw a season ago, only with vastly better goaltending.
They play with confidence and swagger. Their game soars with a pace that forces opponents to play back on their heels more often than not and it opens up opportunities to score. Even more importantly, they’ve gotten the kind of goaltending from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen that better allows them to play like this knowing he’s going to make the easy and difficult saves more often than not.
We saw all of that on display Saturday night in spades.
“This league’s not easy, and you talk about the expectations, you talk about all of that, and sometimes you forget that you still got to go out and play the games, and I think that we’re just going out and playing the games and believing in what we’re doing and trying to stick to a game plan and win,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “We’re scoring goals different ways, which has been really nice to see.”
More ahead on a butt-kicking delivered on home ice that’s been in the making for some time.
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Scoring the first goal has been such an issue all season long for the Sabres that when they do get the opening goal of the game it’s almost startling. That they opened up Saturday’s game with the first two goals was almost staggering.
Jeff Skinner ripped one from the slot 1:55 into the game to get Buffalo out ahead and get the fans at KeyBank Center up and roaring. For the better part of the first period, the Sabres were aggressive up the ice and attacking whenever they got across the red line. It wasn’t all sunshine, however, there were turnovers and some of the semi-customary mistakes, but this time both teams treated the puck like a hot potato.
In the second period, Dylan Cozens got the first of his two shorthanded goals in the game after Alex Tuch was busted on a high-sticking call in the first minute of the period. Cozens knocked the puck away from Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore and bolted down the ice on a break and beat Thompson.
In what would’ve been a “Same Ole’ Sabres” moment had the game gone sideways Brendan Brisson scored less than a minute later to make it 2-1. Then William Karlsson tied it up 2:42 later. After a brief 2-0 lead the game was tied and it’s in those moments the game hung in the balance. Vegas had the momentum, and the Sabres were rattled. But unlike other moments earlier this season, their trepidation didn’t last long.
Vegas peppered them for the next few minutes, but it was a Luukkonen save on an incredible play by Chandler Stephenson who set up Michael Amadio on the far post for a chance that stopped Vegas cold. Luukkonen made a sliding stick save on Amadio and roughly two minutes later, Zemgus Girgensons beat Thompson with a shot high to the corner to make it 3-2 Buffalo.
“You have a two-goal lead, everybody says, ‘you blow it,’ because it’s now 2-2 or it was 2-2,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “That challenges your psyche right there, especially a very capable team that you’re playing against. We had to get the momentum back, and I thought all four lines did it. I thought all six defensemen did it. We did a nice job and didn’t score right away. It took a while for Zemgus to score, but what a nice goal that was.”
Luukkonen told me the difficult part of making that play was reading how the puck came off Stephenson’s stick since he made the cross crease pass one-handed. Amadio came screaming down the wing ready to put Vegas ahead and really turn the game on its head. Luukkonen said he knew there was someone coming to that side but he wasn’t quite sure where they would be. He slid to that post and got the shot with his stick and put it in the air away from danger.
It’s not often you say, “put a star on that save” because it might be a turning point and it turns out to actually be the case, but Luukkonen’s stop on Amadio turned out to be the last really high-quality opportunity they had the rest of the game because Girgensons’ goal gave Buffalo their mojo back and they rolled from that point on.
In the third period, at 2:20, Kyle Okposo made it 4-2 when he buried a rebound of a Skinner shot by Thompson. Just over four minutes later, Owen Power’s fourth of the year made it 5-2. Casey Mittelstadt followed nearly six minutes later with a power play goal with Okposo screening Thompson to make it 6-2. We’ve talked ad nauseum about the Sabres need to get to the net and create opportunities by being there, but they’ve made it a regular occurrence the past couple months that even asking about it seems silly because it’s just part of their game now.
“I think you’ve seen an uptick in the power play recently, and that’s been a point of emphasis, take away the goalie’s eyes,” Okposo said. “That’s a big thing. Mittsy’s shot, (Thompson) can’t see it, so it’s going to be a hard save. And we’ve done that, I think, better over the last month or so on the PP and we got to the net tonight. We made sure to shoot and get there and let our skill take over after that.”
Even though the crowd was already rolling, Peyton Krebs dropped the gloves with Ivan Barbashev and Krebs got the crowd roaring holding his arms up to egg them on. Krebs earned an extra slashing penalty on the play which then opened the door for Cozens to get his second shorty of the game.
A lack of urgency from Vegas’ Jonathan Marchesseault and Shea Theodore with the game all but salted away gave Cozens time to get a shot in on Thompson which he followed up on the rebound and banked it in off the Golden Knights goalie. Insult to injury.
“It’s definitely been a struggle for me this year in the goal-scoring department,” Cozens said. “I feel like I couldn’t get any bounces, so to get a few today, it feels good. Hopefully it can be the start of getting the scoring touch back.”
The Sabres aren’t throwing a parade after a win like this, but it’s nice to see all the same. And frustrating just the same.
For as much apathy as there is for the team after the start they had this season, they are playing well. They’re 7-3-0 in their last 10 games and 14-9-0 since the start of 2024. That’s very good to see and even in those games there are still maddening losses. Such is life. But Sunday is another day and another game against another Western Conference titan in Winnipeg.
They’ll likely see Laurent Brossoit in goal, but the Jets under Rick Bowness play the kind of hockey that deeply frustrates the Sabres. Whether Luukkonen gets the call in a back-to-back (he made 23 saves Saturday night) or not will be the really interesting call. They’re playing well and they’re playing with intent even though the dream of playoffs is a distant one, still.
“I’m not worried it’s too late,” Skinner said. “What are you going to do, worry about the past? So, for us, we keep moving forward. We got another game (Sunday). Quick turnaround. And we try and keep the good things in our game going and keep it going.”