Although Buffalo was unable to seal a victory, they did earn a point — leaving them 10 points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the second Eastern Wild Card spot.
Chicago scored first and held onto the lead in the first period — Duncan Keith gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead at 16:01 with a backhanded shot from the slot. Teammate Artem Anisimov made it 2-0 at 18:26, scoring off a pass from Patrick Kane. Kane, who had two assists, moved into fourth place on the Blackhawks all-time points list with a total of 924.
The Sabres struck back in the second period, starting early — Vladimir Sobotka, who just returned to the lineup, ended the Sabres’ silence making it a 2-1 game at 3:16. Shortly after, new teammate Brandon Montour tied it at 2 at 4:39 — but it didn’t stop there. Zach Bogosian joined his teammates scoring a short-handed goal at 6:45, giving Buffalo the lead, and they held onto it.
It wasn’t until the third period that the Blackhawks would tie the game back up at 3 each — Anisimov scored his second of the game at 4:48. Kyle Okposo gave the Sabres the lead once again, 4-3, at 7:20. Chicago’s Brendan Perlini followed up not even a minute later, tying it up 4-4 at 7:57 and it stayed that way up until time regular time of play ran out. Both teams advanced to overtime, followed shortly by a shootout.
Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and Alex DeBrincat scored in the shootout for the Blackhawks while only Jack Eichel scored for the Sabres.
Corey Crawford made 35 saves for the Blackhawks and Carter Hutton made 41 saves.