Sabres drop second overtime loss in as many games, but remain optimistic
It's too early for the Sabres to start fretting, 10 games into the season. If you ask Lindy Ruff, he wasn’t disappointed with the entirety of the loss. The first 15 minutes left something to be desired, and Ruff said as much.
he Buffalo Sabres were minutes from notching their fifth consecutive win at KeyBank Center. They held a one-goal lead for nearly 14 minutes of the third period. They had a quality scoring chance in the first 40 seconds of overtime.
But they couldn’t cash in when it counted in a 4-3 overtime loss Tuesday to Columbus, whether it was protecting a third-period lead or burying their first and best chance with room on the ice in the extra session.
At first glance, the Sabres lost a second overtime decision after squandering a third-period lead in as many games. Three nights after losing a one-goal lead in the third period and losing 4-3 in overtime Saturday at Toronto, the Sabres again lost a 3-2 lead in the third period, as Miles Wood scored his second goal of the game with 2:07 left in overtime to end the game.
Buffalo Sabres forward Josh Dunne (44) moves the puck in overtime against the Columbus Blue Jackets at KeyBank Center on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.
Joed Viera/Buffalo News
It's too early for the Sabres to start fretting, 10 games into the season. If you ask Lindy Ruff, he wasn’t disappointed with the entirety of the loss. The first 15 minutes left something to be desired, and Ruff said as much.
But Ruff saw that his team wasn’t giving up what he called “egregious” chances and continued to create scoring chances, including Jiri Kulich’s breakaway attempt that Columbus goalie Jet Greaves stopped 37 seconds into overtime.
The Sabres also got solid play from their fourth line of center Peyton Krebs, left wing Josh Dunne and right wing Beck Malenstyn, who had the primary assist on Dunne’s goal and had four hits and blocked two shots. The three were also in the middle of a scrum at the end of the second that resulted in three roughing penalties – two against Columbus’ Dmitri Voronkov and Kirill Marchenko and one against Buffalo defenseman Bowen Byram – which opened the door for Dunne’s first NHL goal, which gave the Sabres a 3-2 lead 2:40 into the third.
“I saw Krebs in there and the guys were in there, and I was going to go in there, too,” Dunne said. “That’s the way it goes, where everyone’s in or all in, or we’re all in together.”
But about that third period? The Sabres again were unable to protect a lead. Wood tied the game at 3-3 by redirecting a shot from the point by Chinakhov past Lyon at 13:55.
“We’re a young team, and to get experience in those situations early on in the year is going to be huge, at the end of the season,” said Josh Doan, whose second-period goal was his seventh point in the last seven games. “It’s one of those things where, as a group, not that you have to dig in, but you have to trust each other and trust in the fact that you got that lead for a reason and keep playing that kind of style that allowed you to be there.”
The key to learning how to protect a lead?
“The only way to do that is by having leads at the end of the game,” Doan said.
A year ago, Ruff may not have been as upbeat after this kind of loss. Again, he considered the output as a whole, as opposed to the fact that his team lost a one-goal lead. He was a little more blunt in his assessment of his team’s first 15 minutes, in which they put only two shots on goal and passed the puck poorly, despite the best efforts of goalie Alex Lyon (35 saves).
“I think we thought the game was a 7:18 start. And it was 6:45,” Ruff quipped. “Unacceptable, the way we started.”
The Sabres trailed 1-0 after Yegor Chinakhov’s goal at 6:09. Doan and Ryan McLeod gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead in a span of less than three minutes midway through the second, but Zach Werenski’s power-play goal on a shot from the point, with Alex Tuch penalized for interference, tied the game with 16 seconds left in the second.
The way it ended wasn’t stellar, either. Jiri Kulich missed a prime chance to end the game in the first minute of overtime, and with 2:07 left in the 3-on-3 session, Wood got behind Owen Power and went bar down against Lyon, off a pass from an open Werenski, to score his second goal and end the game.
"We’re man-on-man there, so Kulich vacating the middle of the ice, his man was the guy that made the pass,” Ruff said. “I think if he holds, we end up killing the play. And then once he left, now we’re facing a little bit of a 2-on-3. But we got beat off the wall, for sure.”
Again, Ruff didn’t carry a long face into his postgame interview session. He judged growth, rather than in-game setbacks or a lack of effort out of the gate and offered a succinct evaluation of a team that’s earned its 10 points in six of its last seven games, even after back-to-back overtime losses.
“We’re becoming a team that knows how to still try to win, but don’t make egregious mistakes to lose,” Ruff said.