3-game regular season series tied at one
Sabres 4 – Hurricanes 1 (en) Buffalo and Carolina each have beaten each other at their home rinks this season with the rubber match coming on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday January 19th, 2026, an afternoon game (1:30 pm) in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The first period was maddening, the Sabres took the 1-0 lead on the power play and then shortly thereafter scored again, but the officials and the HQ in Toronto ruled “goaltender interference” (no clear rules on this) and disallowed the goal, video replay highlights the Buffalo player was clearly out of the blue ice and the Carolina netminder had time and did reset.
Then the officials called a phantom penalty on Buffalo which video replay again clearly shows that the offending Buffalo player did not touch the Carolina player who on video replay can be seen reaching too far forward and fell on his own, the Sabres killed off that Hurricanes power play.
Buffalo had held Carolina to just one SOG for approximately the first 15 minutes of the first period, then chaos during another penalty kill in front of the Sabres net as one Sabres player fell onto a sprawling (G) Luukkonen and another Sabres player in an attempt to clear the puck put it to a Carolina player in open ice who shot the puck into a gapping net to tie the game at one apiece to end the first period.
The Second period was much better as the Sabres scored early and late in the period to take a commanding 3-1 lead, with the third goal a beautiful deke the defender & breakaway goal by (LW) Malenstyn (2nd goal of the season) with less than two minutes remaining in the period.
Carolina had pulled their goaltender with at least three minutes remaining in the game and kept control for the most part, but Sabres (G) Luukkonen was excellent and once Buffalo regained possession it turned into an easy give-and-go between (C) Thompson and (LW) Benson for the empty netter and the 4-1 victory over the Eastern Conference leader.
Buffalo Winter 