The Colorado Avalanche hosted the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night (Nov. 13), following their 3-1 victory over the Sabres back on Oct. 13 in Buffalo. The Avalanche were looking to win their fifth straight game, while the Sabres looked to stop their four-game skid. After the final horn sounded, the Avalanche claimed their fifth straight win after defeating the Sabres 6-3.
The first 20 minutes of the game saw a plethora of goals, five in total. The Avalanche had an early lead, 52 seconds into the game, after a Martin Necas breakaway to beat Alex Lyon. Cale Makar caught the Sabres’ defense napping, and Necas was able to score his 11th of the season. Artturi Lehkonen doubled the Avalanche’s lead just five minutes later after picking up the loose rebound, following a Sam Malinski shot. Lyon made the save, but Lehkonen was there to make it 2-0.
After a Bowen Byram goal cut the lead in half, Brock Nelson made it a two-goal game again. After some great tic-tac-toe passing from Gavin Brindley to Ross Colton, who one-touched it through a Sabres player’s legs, he found Nelson in the high slot. Nelson, with the quick shot, made it a 3-1 game. Jordan Greenway cut the lead to one goal once again after a quick shot got through MacKenzie Blackwood. Seemed like it just found enough momentum to sneak in. Gabriel Landeskog scored in back-to-back games, but for the third time this season, he saw it waved off, this time due to goalie interference.
The second period did see some goals, but only two this time. It took almost 15 minutes before the first one was scored, and it was the Sabres who got on the board. After a Nathan MacKinnon penalty, Tage Thompson with the one-time shot got it past Blackwood to tie the game 3-3, after playing from behind most of the game. However, not even two minutes later, Brindley gave himself a multi-point night, putting the Avalanche back out front 4-3. After receiving a two-year contract extension and a promotion to the second line, Brindley had himself a game.
The third period saw two goals, this time both coming from the Avalanche. Necas scored his second of the game after a stellar individual effort from MacKinnon to find him in between the circles. The assist pushed MacKinnon’s point streak to 11 games, and gave Necas his 12th goal of the season. The final goal of the game came on an empty net tally from Landeskog. After missing the net, Necas retrieved the puck and, instead of scoring the hat-trick goal, passed it to the captain to secure his second goal of the season.
The Avalanche pushed their point streak to nine games, and are now on a five-game winning streak. They’re now 12-1-5 on the season and have won the first two games of their four-game homestand. Their next game is on Sunday, Nov. 16, against the New York Islanders. Regarding the Sabres, they’re on a five-game losing streak and are 5-8-4 on the season. Their next game is on Saturday, Nov. 15, against the Detroit Red Wings on the road.
According to a team announcement, the Vegas Golden Knights are expected to be without forward William Karlsson for the next few weeks due to a lower-body injury. Karlsson missed his first game of the year on Monday against the Florida Panthers due to the injury.
It’s an unfortunate circumstance for Karlsson and the Golden Knights, as he was quietly placed on the team’s injured reserve Wednesday morning. Although he’s not a direct replacement, Vegas has recalled Braeden Bowman from the AHL’s Henderson Silver Knights after scoring seven goals and 12 points through his first 12 games to start the season.
Once again, the Golden Knights’ regular-season success is being heavily impacted by injury concerns. Alongside Karlsson, the team was already without captain Mark Stone and starting netminder Adin Hill for the foreseeable future. They’re currently 7-4-4 and two points back of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference standings.
Unfortunately, this is all too familiar for Karlsson. One of the four remaining “Misfits”, Karlsson lost 29 games to a lower-body injury last year, finishing with nine goals and 29 points. He had gotten off to a relatively solid start to the current season, scoring four goals and seven points in 14 games while averaging 15:09 of ice time per game.
It’s a tricky situation for the cap-strapped Golden Knights. According to the new LTIR rules, Vegas is only able to shed Alex Pietrangelo’s $8.8M salary this season since he won’t feature during the year or the postseason. Unfortunately, even with Stone on LTIR and Karlsson now on the IR, the Golden Knights only have a little over $450K in cap space, leaving them with very few options to fill in their injury holes.