The Buffalo Sabres were back on home ice against the Islanders Saturday night, in a game that saw them dominate from start to finish in a 3-1 victory.

The Buffalo Sabres debuted their goat head jerseys for the first time this season. Just like last season, the team didn’t disappoint in the black and red.

The Sabres offense played well again, recording three goals for the third consecutive game.

Further, the team generated a lot of chances over the course of the night, recording 43 shots and had the potential to score even more goals than they did.

However, three goals were enough, thanks to a great game from the defense and goaltender Eric Comrie.

The Sabres defense held the Islanders to just one goal and 25 shots.

As for Comrie, he saved 24 of those 25 shots and was one bad bounce away from recording a shutout in his first start of the season.

1st period

The Buffalo Sabres would start the game off hot, generating chances quickly and putting the Islanders defense in a bad spot.

Despite this, the Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov was up to the task, shutting down the Sabres offense early.

As for the Islanders offense, the unit couldn’t seem to get anything going against the Buffalo defense and could only generate two chances, and seven shots in the first 20 minutes.

Buffalo would end up recording 14 shots in the period, but would not end up scoring, sending the game to the first intermission tied at zero.

2nd period

The Sabres would continue to generate chances in the second period, but again Varlamov was up to the task early.

However, as the period progressed, the Sabres offense continued to wear down the veteran goaltender.

This would lead eventually lead to a high-quality chance for Sabres Jeff Skinner, who would fire it past Varlamov and put Buffalo in front 1-0 late in the second period.

Buffalo wasn’t done however, adding another goal in the final minute, this time from Mattias Samuelsson to extend Buffalo’s lead to 2-0.

After their second goal, the Sabres would keep pouring it on and would receive a powerplay that the team would take into the third period.

3rd period

The Sabres entered the third period with an opportunity to further extend their lead on the power play, and after failing to capitalize on their first power-play chance, the team would receive a second opportunity.

On the second power play, Sabres Dylan Cozens would find himself in the right position at the right time, and score to put Buffalo in front 3-0.

After the team’s third goal, Buffalo would start to play a more conservative game in an attempt to protect their three-goal lead.

This approach would work well, as the Islanders offense couldn’t generate any good chances, and would soon be down to their last gasp with just three minutes left in the game.

The Islanders offense would finally start to apply some pressure late and would have an offensive zone faceoff with just under two minutes to go.

New York would win the faceoff, and defensemen Noah Dobson would score a goal on a shot that was deflected by Sabres defensemen Connor Cliffton to make it 3-1.

However, the Islanders couldn’t build off of the Dobson goal, and would fall 3-1 to the Buffalo Sabres.

Takeaways

The Sabres played a great game all around, winning 3-1 to improve to 2-3-0 on the season.

The offense had many chances and capitalized often enough to get Buffalo a three-goal lead and the team wouldn’t look back.

The Sabres defense looked great as well, preventing the Islanders from getting any quality chances and gave goaltender Eric Comrie some great support up front.

Comrie played well in his first start of the season, almost recording a shutout and making key saves when needed against a good Islanders team.

As for special teams, the Sabres would score on the power play for the second consecutive game, and give the team some added insurance early in third.

The penalty kill unit was also able to continue their successful start to the season, killing all three of the Islanders power plays in the contest.

Overall, the Sabres played a complete game on both sides and now look ahead to their matchup with the Montreal Canadiens on Monday night.