Sabres answer two deficits and beat Blackhawks 4-3 in home opener

Buffalo won its home opener 4-3 over Chicago on Saturday, October 3, but it had to recover twice. The Blackhawks led 2-0 before Jack Quinn and Tage Thompson brought the Sabres level. Chicago then went ahead 3-2, forcing another answer in the third period.

Rasmus Dahlin scored to make it 3-3, and Jiri Kulich supplied the winner. The NHL's final game record credits Buffalo with 28 shots on goal to Chicago's 15. Kulich, Quinn and Dahlin were the game's three stars on the official record.

The second answer mattered most

The first comeback kept the Sabres in the game. The second decided it. Once Chicago had retaken the lead, Buffalo could not simply carry forward the momentum of its earlier equalizer. Dahlin and Kulich turned a potentially frustrating home opener into a first win after Thursday's 6-3 loss in Columbus.

The shot count makes the path less comfortable than the territorial balance suggests. Buffalo produced almost twice as many shots as Chicago but still allowed three goals on 15 shots. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 12 of those 15, according to the NHL box score. The result is a response, not proof that all of the season-opening problems are solved.

A win with work still to do

Buffalo can take the resilience and the volume of chances into its next game. The early 2-0 hole and the later surrendered lead belong in the review too. The best version of this home opener is not a flawless performance. It is a team finding enough offense to repair two separate mistakes before the final horn.