The Biggest Sabres Open-Ice Hit In Years Happened Last Night
We know the Buffalo Bills are king right now in Buffalo sports talk, but the Buffalo Sabres are looking very good in the first three games of their season.
The Sabres won their second of three games to open the 2022-2023 regular season on Tuesday night, defeating the high-scoring Edmonton Oilers 4-2.
Tage Thompson scored a beautiful goal, weaving his way through Oilers players for the Sabres second goal, while rookie JJ Peterka scored the eventual game-winning goal on a breakaway.
Rasmus Dahlin and Alex Tuch scored the other two Sabres goals in what was their best effort so far in this early part of the season.
The biggest highlight of the night probably wasn't a goal, however, it was a gigantic open-ice hit that was delivered by newly signed Sabres defenseman, Ilya Lyubushkin.
Lyubushkin delivered a clean, open-ice hit on the Oilers' Dylan Holloway in the second period, which took off on social media.
Lyubushkin ended up having to wrestle with Oilers players after the hit, which is common for players to stick up for their teammate, but I don't like it when that takes place after clean open-ice hits. In their defense, they might have thought it was dirty.
Lyubushkin's shoulder comes into the chest of Holloway and his elbow only is raised after the hit was delivered and doesn't make any contact with Holloway's head. It was a beautiful open-ice check.
This is exactly why Lyubuskhin was signed by general manager Kevyn Adams. This type of defenseman was missing on the Sabres blue line.
Buffalo next plays at the Calgary Flames on Thursday night. Puck drop is at 9:30 pm.