It was nowhere near a pretty win, but the Buffalo Sabres found a way to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-1 in overtime on Saturday afternoon at KeyBank Center.
Neither team was able to take control in the opening 20 minutes, but Buffalo made the most of their best chance when Evan Rodrigues won a battle in the corner, Rasmus Dahlin made a quick move with the puck, and found the forward alone in the slot to make it 1-0. Each team recorded five shots on goal in the first period.
The Blue Jackets were coming off of their 10-day bye week on Saturday, and it showed through the first 40 minutes. There appeared to be little bursts when the visitors would try to take over the game, but never were able to sustain it for more than a shift.
Head coach Ralph Krueger said that the win was, “just really good to see the confirmation of the process, and I also thought when they tied it up we stayed calm today and just looked like a mature team believing in the way we needed to play.” Krueger continued, “for us, it’s more about the habits and we loved the habits today through the game on both sides of the puck.”
Once again, the special teams put the blue and gold into a position to win the game. While they did not have a power play opportunity in the victory, they did go 2-for-2 on the penalty kill. Columbus hit the post early on their first man advantage, but after that, I never got the sense that the Sabres were in any real trouble while down a man.
Carter Hutton won his first game between the pipes in 13 starts. Krueger wanted to impress on the fact that the goalie was putting in more work than we saw, despite the results. He added that, “secondary to the way he’s prepared himself for this situation happening... there was a lot of extra work going on with [assistant coach] Mike Bales, off-ice, on-ice, all kinds of work. No one gave up on Carter and Carter didn’t give up on Carter.” Hutton made 22 saves to earn the win.
Hutton played well enough in each of the two losses this week, but the offense in front of him was not up to the task. Again on Saturday it was the captain who came through in the clutch. And not to be overlooked in the overtime was the faceoff win by Curtis Lazar that helped Buffalo gain possession in overtime and allow Eichel to wind his way into the offensive zone to score the game-winning goal.
Buffalo will play three games in four days this coming week, starting with the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday. The five-game homestand concludes Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings, before heading to New York to take on the Rangers on Friday night.