The Washington Capitals did something that no other NHL team has been able to do since before the Olympic break: beat the Buffalo Sabres.
Coming into Thursday night’s action at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, the Sabres had won eight games in a row. They had not lost on home ice since February 5, when they fell 5-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins right before the NHL paused play.
To put the big win into perspective, here are some crazy stats the Sabres have recently racked up.
- The 2025-26 Buffalo Sabres became the first team in franchise history with multiple winning streaks of eight-plus games. They won a franchise-record-tying 10 games in December.
- On December 9, the Sabres were in last place in the Eastern Conference. They have won a league-best 28 games since then and now sit atop the Atlantic Division.
- Since that same date, the Sabres have led the league in points percentage (.833), regulation wins (26), goals for per game (3.94), goals against per game (2.58), and save percentage (.915).
- Buffalo has 10 players with 30-plus points this season; no other team has more than eight. They only scored once on Charlie Lindgren.
- The Sabres have scored a league-leading 10 shorthanded goals. They didn’t get one against the Capitals, who have given up the second-most (9).
- During their win streak, they scored a league-leading 36 goals, averaging 4.5 per game.
- Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had personally not lost a start since January 19, also a 2-1 defeat, to the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Capitals, who recently saw their chances of qualifying for the playoffs sink to single digits, had lost four in a row on the road coming into the game and were playing the back half of a back-to-back with travel. In the first period, the Caps were outshot by the Sabres 15-3, but recovered from there to outshoot Buffalo 20-15 in the second and third periods.
Charlie Lindgren made 29 stops in the win, and the veteran backstop saved 2.15 more goals than expected, per MoneyPuck. After going down 1-0 in the first period, Ryan Leonard scored the game-tying goal just 2:14 into the second period, and the Capitals got the game-winning goal from Jakob Chychrun with just 1:33 remaining in regulation.
“Capitals make the hottest team in the league look human,” former Capitals forward TJ Oshie said postgame on Monumental Sports Network.
Well said, TJ.
