Buffalo won its latest game with two goals; Anaheim lost despite scoring five. Those contrasting nights frame Thursday’s matchup better than the five wins each team brings into it. The Sabres created repeated work for San Jose’s goalie but needed a shutout to secure the result. The Ducks built another productive offensive night, then watched a late lead disappear. At a total of 6.5, the question is which team can turn its encouraging work into a more complete performance.
Buffalo’s win left a finishing question
Olen Zellweger scored in the second period of Tuesday’s 2-0 victory at San Jose, and Zach Benson added an empty-net goal. Yaroslav Askarov made 38 saves for the Sharks, while Colten Ellis stopped all 23 shots he faced for Buffalo.
The Sabres generated plenty of saves without building a comfortable scoring cushion. That gives their attack something to build on against Anaheim, but it also matters that Buffalo has scored no more than three goals in each of its last four games. The latest win ended a three-game losing run rather than establishing a sustained scoring surge.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is the expected Buffalo goalie for this matchup, so Ellis’s shutout is a team result to distinguish from the goalie evidence for Thursday. Luukkonen allowed three or four goals in each of his latest five completed appearances this season, with a .890 save percentage across that sample. A repeat of Buffalo’s last score would require a different performance from those recent outings.
Anaheim has found goals, but not security
The Ducks led Vancouver 5-2 with 7:37 left in regulation Tuesday and lost 6-5 in overtime. A.J. Greer scored twice; Jeff Malott, Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson also scored, and Jackson LaCombe supplied three assists. Vancouver answered with four consecutive goals, including the overtime power-play winner.
Anaheim has scored five in each of its last two games after scoring just one or two in each of the four before them. That is a useful recent improvement, with Tuesday’s scoring spread across several contributors. The collapse remains just as relevant: offense gave the Ducks a strong position, but it could not protect that position by itself.
Lukas Dostal, Anaheim’s expected goalie, allowed 20 goals on 147 shots across his latest five appearances, a .864 save percentage. Both goalies remain unconfirmed starters, and these are recent samples rather than full-season statistics.
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What the prices ask of both attacks
DraftKings has Buffalo favored at -142, with Anaheim at +120. Each team has five wins in 12 games, while the Sabres have won four of their last 10 and the Ducks three, all this season. Buffalo’s latest shooting activity supports examining its attack beyond the final two goals; Anaheim’s recent scoring is a meaningful challenge to assuming the favorite can repeat a shutout-based win.
The total brings those issues together. Luukkonen’s and Dostal’s recent goals allowed, plus Anaheim’s consecutive five-goal outings, provide reasons to take the scoring possibilities seriously. The counterweight is Buffalo’s limited recent finishing: a busy opposing goalie does not automatically mean a large goal total.
Seven of Buffalo’s 12 games this season went Over their respective totals, while seven of Anaheim’s 12 went Under. Those differing histories reinforce the need to assess the actual matchup rather than treating either latest score as the norm.
Buffalo’s opportunity is to make more of the activity it showed in San Jose. Anaheim’s is to sustain its broader scoring contributions while avoiding another late breakdown. The favorite’s case depends on converting that activity into enough offense to withstand the Ducks’ response; Anaheim’s case needs more than another five-goal headline.
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