Sabres Snap Blue Jackets Back Down to Earth With 5-2 Win

Buffalo 5, Columbus 2. This wasn't a nail-biter and it wasn't a fluke. The Sabres took care of business at home and handed the Blue Jackets a three-goal loss that will sting on the flight home.

A three-goal margin says something. It says Buffalo finished the night ahead, and Columbus never found a way to close the gap on the scoreboard. However the game flowed from shift to shift, the final number is the verdict, and it's a clean one for the home side.

We won't pretend to know more than we do. Our notes carry the final score and nothing else, so there's no goal-by-goal breakdown, no shot totals, and no injury updates here. What we can say with a straight face is that five beats two is the kind of result that usually comes from a team that controlled the moments that mattered, and Buffalo gets the win in front of its own crowd.

For Columbus, the takeaway is simple: two goals on the road against this group won't get it done, and the rest of the story will have to come from the full box score. For Buffalo, five goals on the board is a number you can build a week around.