The Sabres stole one. They lost the expected-goals battle 3.78–2.69 and won anyway.
Buffalo obliterated Columbus 5-0 while getting outchanced 58-42 in expected goals—the kind of scoreline that makes xG models question their purpose. The Blue Jackets created 3.78 expected goals to Buffalo's 2.69, but found themselves on the wrong end of a 5-0 mercy.
C. Ellis, Buffalo's goaltender, accounted for nearly all of the gap. He stopped 37 of 37 shots—a 1.000 save percentage—while playing 3.78 goals above his expected level. When a goalie saves four additional goals beyond model expectations in a single night, the scoreboard tells one story and the underlying metrics tell another. Ellis was the only reason this wasn't Columbus's night.
The Blue Jackets couldn't solve a simple problem: they generated quality chances but converted none. They were 0 for 6 on high-danger opportunities; Buffalo countered with 3 goals on 5 such chances, a 60% efficiency rate. High-danger conversion isn't usually this lopsided. Greaves surrendered 1.31 more goals than expected despite facing 23 shots—an unlucky workload distribution.
Buffalo's dominance came from a different dimension. They scored four goals on 25 rush chances and orchestrated the attack through L. Stanley, who recorded two assists in just 16:19 of ice time. J. Doan finished with two goals in 14:42; J. Norris added two assists in 14:36.
The turning point arrived in the first period when Rasmus Dahlin's sharp-angle wrist shot—P3, 16:55—beat Greaves clean. It was prescient: Buffalo would make every difficult opportunity count while Columbus's cleaner looks bounced away empty.
