It wasn’t the prettiest, but the Sabres came out with a 5-2 win.
Score: Sabres 5, Flyers 2
Shots: BUF 15, PHI 40
Buffalo Sabres Goals: Casey Mittelstadt (3), Brandon Biro (1, 2), Owen Power (1), Tage Thompson (5)
Philadelphia Flyers Goals: Joel Farabee (5), Cam Atkinson (6)
Plus 1: A Win is a Win, and Things to Like.
Wednesday’s game certainly had its ups and downs. The first period alone was filled with a little bit of everything. In the end, the Sabres got two points, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had 38 saves, and Buffalo is now on a two-game winning streak. Brandon Biro not only notched his first NHL goal, but his second, too. It’s always great to see a guy get his first goal, and this was only Biro’s second NHL game – and first since 2022. Jeff Skinner also had a nifty goal, which was called back after a Flyers challenge for offsides; it won’t show up on the scoresheet, but it was still a nice play.
Tage Thompson’s first shot on goal of the night… was a goal. Can’t argue with that shooting percentage, right? He also had two assists. It was also a nice night for Casey Mittelstadt, who registered a goal and an assist, and Alex Tuch, who had two assists.
Minus 1: Uninspired Hockey, at Times.
Just as there was a lot to like, there was also a lot to dislike about Wednesday’s game. The Sabres gave up a goal to Joel Farabee less than a minute in, and it was just a plain bad shot. Philly’s second goal came off a deflection, another bad bounce that they just couldn’t seem to stop. Luukkonen seemed to shrink when faced with Flyers chances, and early on, that didn’t bode well for the night ahead. Thankfully for the Sabres, he turned things around quickly.
Buffalo was also massively outshot, in every period, including a whopping 20-4 margin of difference in the third period. That’s downright unacceptable, and even mores when you consider that the Sabres should’ve been shooting at a backup goalie. (Samuel Ersson came in 10 minutes into the game after Carter Hart left with injury.) Four shots in the second period? Four shots in the third period? Come on. You’ve got to have more than that.
Final Thoughts
In the end, UPL stole this one for the Sabres, and it ended up being a sizable win at that. On the flip side, it was good to see Devon Levi back with the team and dressed for a game, if only as a backup. The expectation seems to be that he could play Friday at home against these same Flyers, or Saturday perhaps, so we’ll see how things play out over the next few days.
Biro didn’t get a ton of ice time, despite initially being billed on the top line, but when he did play, he looked good – and was rewarded with a couple goals as a result. Henri Jokiharju had a rough game early on but improved as the night went on. The team looked uninspired at times and straight up rough at others. Time to put this one in the back of their heads – not forgotten, still there – and prepare for Friday’s rematch.
On a completely different note, if you look closely at the featured image accompanying this piece, you’ll see that for at least part of Wednesday’s game, Rasmus Dahlin was sporting some neck protection. We’ve seen several players across the sport of hockey testing these out lately, since the tragic death of former Penguins player Adam Johnson. It appears that Dahlin ended up taking it off and didn’t wear it the entire game, but who knows – maybe he’ll test out some other similar products and see what feels best.
Meanwhile, the WHL just mandated neck guards for its players effective Friday (the OHL and QMJHL already mandated them), and the Pittsburgh Penguins have mandated neck guards for their AHL and ECHL teams. It’s incredibly sad that it takes something like this for us to consider the safety of the players more deeply, but perhaps more players & teams can take steps in the right direction to help prevent something like this from ever happening again.