Colten Ellis steps in to help Sabres maintain division lead with 37-save shutout
With the 25-year-old rookie set to be the Sabres backup to start the playoffs, his coach and teammates were full of nothing but praise.
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Colten Ellis started after Alex Lyon went down with a lower-body injury that will keep him out for at least a week.
Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images
This isn’t how the Buffalo Sabres envisioned Colten Ellis getting back into the net.
Alex Lyon left the Sabres’ morning skate at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday with a lower-body injury. Lyon is going to be out for at least a week, and coach Lindy Ruff said he could miss the start of the playoffs. For the last four months, Lyon has been part of one of the best goalie tandems in the NHL along with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. But the team has kept three goalies on the roster ever since claiming Ellis on waivers at the beginning of the season. The 25-year-old rookie made five starts in November but had made only five more since before the Sabres turned to him Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This was a massive game for the Sabres, too. Their playoff spot is clinched, but they entered the game with just a 2-point lead on the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Atlantic Division. They needed a win to put a stronger grip on home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs and push for the top spot in the division.
Ellis was ready for the moment. Playing his usual competitive style in net, Ellis put together a 37-save shutout in a decisive 5-0 win for the Sabres.
“I think he’s had probably the toughest job so far this year, getting ready for games every night and knowing that he’s probably not gonna get in for that game,” forward Josh Doan said. “But he has to be ready to go 24/7, and he’s battling in the morning with guys. He works his nuts off, and tonight is a great reward for him. As a group, I don’t think there’s one guy surprised by how he played tonight.”
After Ellis was named the first star of the game, his teammates dragged him back onto the ice for a curtain call as the home crowd went wild. After Ellis did a walk-off interview for MSG’s broadcast, he walked into the dressing room to loud cheers from his teammates. Ruff gave him a fist bump, and Michael Kesselring ran over to douse him in water. Ruff gave him a game puck for his first career shutout, and Jason Zucker awarded him the team’s player of the game belt after jokingly referring to him as the worst warmup goalie in the league.
“It was awesome, start to finish,” Ellis said. “I think we played a great game, too. We stuck to our game, and I think the guys did a great job of getting in front of pucks and letting me see the lanes and everything like that. It just felt awesome with the crowd, too, and they’ve been so awesome here for the last little while. I know everybody’s been saying that. We talk about it in the room, how awesome it is playing here, and that’s just a lot of fun.”
The night Ellis had is more than just a feel-good story. Earlier in the season, the three-goalie situation made roster space tight. Now it feels like a luxury that the Sabres have a third goalie to turn to after Lyon’s injury. Luukkonen had already earned the right to be the Sabres’ Game 1 starter in the playoffs before Lyon’s injury, but now it isn’t even a question. If Lyon isn’t healthy to start the playoffs, the Sabres need a backup option they can trust, and Ruff has to feel a lot better about Ellis after the way he played Wednesday night.
“He puts a lot of work in,” Ruff said. “He’s the ultimate competitor. He’s doing a lot of extra skates with our extra players. Every time he steps in the net in practice, he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t get scored against. First guy to the rink a lot of times, almost every day. I think that’s part of a routine that leads to a lot of great habits.”
The 5-0 score might give the impression this was a comfortable game for Ellis, but it was anything but early on. Through two periods, Peyton Krebs had the game’s lone goal on a shot off the rush. The Sabres were clinging to a 1-0 lead entering the third period because Ellis managed to stop all 24 shots he faced. On one sequence in the second period, Ellis was scrambling around his crease, lost his stick and still made a few saves to preserve Buffalo’s lead.
The crowd was just as excited as the players for Josh Doan’s second of the game.
Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images
Then the Sabres broke the game open in the third when Doan scored 7:19 into the period by stripping Charlie Coyle of the puck in the neutral zone and bursting into the zone to beat Jet Greaves with a wrist shot. Later in the period, Jack Quinn and Doan scored goals 25 seconds apart to put the Sabres up 4-0. Quinn, who has his first 20-goal season, finished a perfect setup from Logan Stanley, and one night after Doan passed up an empty-netter to give the freebie to Zach Benson, he was the beneficiary of a perfect pass from Benson on Buffalo’s fourth goal. Rasmus Dahlin put the finishing touches on the game with an empty net goal that went the length of the ice.
Despite the final score, the Sabres were still selling out to block shots to help Ellis preserve his first career shutout.
While the Sabres were celebrating Ellis’ performance, the Canadiens scored a late goal to beat the Lightning in regulation. Buffalo finished the night in first place in the Atlantic Division with a 2-point lead on the Canadiens. The Canadiens have a game in hand, but the Sabres have already clinched the tiebreaker. They’re 4 points up on the Lightning, who also have a game in hand and can still catch the Sabres in the tiebreaker. According to MoneyPuck, the Sabres have a 74.6 percent chance to win the division entering the weekend.
And the Sabres wouldn’t have gotten to this point without their depth, so it’s fitting the No. 3 goalie is the one who helped get this critical win.
“I think you’ve seen throughout the year the progress that he’s made, and he’s become quite the goalie,” Doan said. “It’s a little bit of a secret how good he can be, and I think tonight, the world got to see what Colten Ellis can do.
“He was really good for us early on in the year, and he hasn’t been in for a while, but it just shows how deep of a team we are. We’ve got goalies that you haven’t seen in a while putting up shutouts on 36 or 37 saves. That’s just something that speaks highly of our group and where we’re at as a team right now.”
