- 1 Los Angeles Kings vs Buffalo Sabres: one home win in four for the Kings, and a Sabres team with points in every game of its road trip
- 2 Los Angeles Kings: the best second period of the year, followed by a third they’ll want to forget
- 3 Buffalo Sabres: Tage Thompson’s natural hat trick and six unanswered goals in Anaheim
- 4 Free NHL Prediction: Los Angeles Kings vs Buffalo Sabres
- 5 About our free predictions
- 6 No commitment from us
- 7 Information changes
- 8 Your responsibility
- 9 Responsible gambling
- 10 Legal age
- 11 About visuals
Los Angeles Kings vs Buffalo Sabres: one home win in four for the Kings, and a Sabres team with points in every game of its road trip 
The Los Angeles Kings lost their first three home games of the season in regulation. Thursday’s 6-5 overtime win over Ottawa at Crypto.com Arena was their first at home, and it came after they’d led 5-1 going into the third period and watched the Senators score four straight to force overtime. Quinton Byfield won it with 1:23 left in the extra period.
That’s the context for Saturday 31 October, when the Kings host the Buffalo Sabres at 4:00pm ET (1:00pm local time). It’s the first of two meetings this season. The second is on 20 December in Buffalo.
Buffalo arrive at 6-4-3 with 15 points, and this is the last stop on a four-game road trip on which they’ve collected points every night, going 2-0-1. Los Angeles are 4-6-2 with 10 points, seventh in the Pacific. One team is coming in with momentum, the other is still working out how to win in its own building.
Both teams played on Thursday, so neither has a rest edge. Both also allowed at least five goals that night, the Kings five and the Sabres six. The Kings concede 3.5 goals per game, and so do the Sabres: Buffalo’s goal difference is minus six, 40 scored and 46 allowed.
The market sees this as a coin flip, with Buffalo’s win probability rated at about 50.4%. I’d lean the same way as that slight edge, for reasons that have more to do with how the Sabres are scoring than with anything they’ve done defensively, and the case starts with Tage Thompson.
Los Angeles Kings: the best second period of the year, followed by a third they’ll want to forget 
Peter Laviolette called Thursday’s middle period the best his team had played all year, and the numbers back him up. Trevor Moore, Mikey Anderson, Joel Armia and Artemi Panarin all scored in the second, Panarin on a two-man advantage, and Los Angeles went from 1-1 to 5-1. Erik Haula’s earlier power-play goal was the Kings’ first at home this season, after they’d started 0-for-11 with the man advantage in their own building.
The third period undid most of that work. Dylan Cozens scored twice, Drake Batherson once, and Shane Pinto tied it with 1:40 left after Ottawa pulled its goaltender. Darcy Kuemper made 17 saves, so Ottawa scored five times on just 22 shots.
The bigger worry coming out of that game is on the blue line. Brandt Clarke didn’t return after an elbow to the head from Hayden Hodgson in the second period, and he’s listed as day-to-day. Los Angeles were already without Jakub Dvorak, Mats Zuccarello, Kevin Fiala, Jan Jenik and Alex Turcotte, so the forward group and the defense are both thinner than the roster sheet suggests.
Without Fiala, the scoring runs through two names. Panarin has six goals and four assists over the last ten games, and Adrian Kempe has three goals and five assists in the same stretch. Drew Doughty had three assists on Thursday, including the primary one on Byfield’s winner.
The record over the last ten games is 4-5-1, and the pattern is uneven. Los Angeles won 3-2 in overtime on Long Island and 6-3 at Madison Square Garden, but lost 3-1 in New Jersey and 2-1 in Chicago. The Kings score 2.8 goals per game this season, and it’s hard to see them winning a high-scoring game without Fiala and Zuccarello in the lineup.
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Buffalo Sabres: Tage Thompson’s natural hat trick and six unanswered goals in Anaheim 
Buffalo trailed Anaheim 3-1 midway through the first period on Thursday. By the end of the second period it was 5-3, and early in the third it was 7-3. The Sabres scored six goals in a row, and Thompson scored three of them, two of those 15 seconds apart late in the second period to complete a natural hat trick. Anaheim scored three in the third, two with Ville Husso pulled, and Buffalo held on 7-6.
It was the 10th hat trick of Thompson’s career, which tied him with Danny Gare and Alexander Mogilny for third-most in franchise history. He added two assists for a five-point night and now leads the team with eight goals and 15 points. Peyton Krebs had three assists, Rasmus Dahlin had two, and Olen Zellweger picked up an assist against the team that traded him to Buffalo on 26 June.
The secondary scoring is the part that makes this team harder to defend than its record suggests. Jack Quinn has 10 points in his last eight games, Zach Benson had a goal and two assists in Anaheim and leads the team at plus-10, and Owen Power has nine assists from the blue line. Over the last ten games, Buffalo average 3.0 goals.
The defensive side is less convincing. The Sabres allow 3.5 goals per game across those same ten games, and Colten Ellis has a .880 save percentage. The one clean night on this trip was a 2-0 win in San Jose on Tuesday, and before that came a 4-3 overtime loss in Washington and a 3-1 loss to Philadelphia.
The injury list is long. Buffalo are without Matt Grzelcyk, Konsta Helenius, Jiri Kulich (concussion), Conor Timmins, Jack Rathbone and goaltender Alex Lyon, with Justin Danforth day-to-day. Lyon’s absence is the reason Ellis keeps getting the starts, and it’s also the main argument against backing the Sabres with any confidence.
Probable lineup Los Angeles Kings: Not announced at time of publication
Probable lineup Buffalo Sabres: Not announced at time of publication
Free NHL Prediction: Los Angeles Kings vs Buffalo Sabres
Our prediction: Buffalo Sabres to win (moneyline, close to even money)
This is a game between two teams that allow 3.5 goals per game, so the edge goes to the side that’s more likely to score four. That’s Buffalo. The Sabres have Thompson in form, Quinn producing at better than a point a game over his last eight, and a power play that scored twice in Anaheim, while the Kings are missing Fiala and Zuccarello and may be without Clarke on the back end.
The Kings’ home record matters here too. One win in four games at Crypto.com Arena, and that win needed overtime after a three-goal lead disappeared in the third period. Buffalo, by contrast, are 3-1-3 away from home and haven’t left a game on this trip without at least a point.
I’ll concede that Ellis’s .880 save percentage is a real concern, and that Panarin and Kempe have been productive enough to punish a loose Buffalo defense. But at a price close to even money, the side with more depth in scoring is the one I’d back.
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