Game

Sabres at Stars

Sabres 4, Stars 1 · first star Tage Thompson (2 G, 1 A).

2025-26 regular season · Preseason. The 2026-27 regular season starts Sep 29. Data as of September 28, 2026, source NHL.

Buffalo Sabres 4 at Dallas Stars 1

Sabres BUF

4 FINAL 1

Stars DAL

Wednesday, December 31, 2025 · 8:00 PM ET · American Airlines Center, Dallas

Line score by period
Team	1	2	3	T	SOG
Sabres	0	2	2	4	31
Stars	1	0	0	1	29

Shot chart

Every shot attempt, computed from the league's play-by-play coordinates. Sabres attack left, Stars attack right, all periods folded onto one rink. Attempts are plotted where the league recorded them, so the 3 marks in a team's own end are attempts logged from there: empty-net shots, long dumps on the net. Boxscore shots on goal: BUF 31, DAL 29.

BUF in red DAL in blue goal shot on goal missed blocked Sabres 31 shots on goal (4 goals, 15 missed, 13 blocked) attacking left; Stars 29 shots on goal (1 goal, 9 missed, 10 blocked) attacking right.

Shots by period

Shots on goal, goals and attempts by period
Period	BUF SOG	BUF G	BUF ATT	DAL SOG	DAL G	DAL ATT
1st	14	0	31	14	1	15
2nd	11	2	18	8	0	13
3rd	6	2	10	7	0	20
Total	31	4	59	29	1	48

Shots by situation

Shots on goal and goals by strength of the shooting team
Situation	BUF SOG	BUF G	DAL SOG	DAL G
Even strength	29	4	26	1
Power play	2	0	1	0
Short-handed	0	0	2	0

Attempt share by period

Sabres took 55.1% of the shot attempts, and 54.6% of the 97 attempts taken at 5-on-5. An attempt is a goal, a shot on goal, a miss or a blocked shot; CF% is the share of them belonging to the Stars and FF% their share of the ones that were not blocked, so the Sabres hold the remainder. All situations unless the 5-on-5 figure is named. All 32 teams

Attempt share by period, all situations, Sabres at Stars
Period	DAL CF%	DAL FF%
1st	32.6	39.5
2nd	41.9	39.1
3rd	66.7	60.9
Game	44.9	45.2

Team totals only: per-player on-ice numbers need shift data, which this source does not publish.

Scoring summary

1st period

00:15 Mavrik Bourque (6) Jason Robertson (23), Miro Heiskanen (28) · snap 0–1

2nd period

07:44 Josh Doan (11) Tage Thompson (17) · snap 1–1
17:05 Bowen Byram (9) Noah Ostlund (4), Alex Tuch (20) · snap 2–1

3rd period

09:21 Tage Thompson (19) Josh Doan (15), Bowen Byram (11) · snap 3–1
11:35 Tage Thompson (20) Noah Ostlund (5), Owen Power (8) · snap 4–1

Three stars

Tage Thompson BUF · C #72 · 2 G, 1 A
Bowen Byram BUF · D #4 · 1 G, 1 A
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen BUF · G #1 · 0 GA, .966 SV%

Penalties

Penalties
Period	Time	Team	Player	Infraction	Min	Drawn by
1st	00:38	DAL	Radek Faksa	high sticking	2	Josh Dunne
2nd	01:41	DAL	Justin Hryckowian	tripping	2	Owen Power
2nd	04:44	BUF	Josh Doan	tripping	2	Thomas Harley
3rd	03:59	BUF	Tage Thompson	hooking	2	Jason Robertson

Boxscore

Buffalo Sabres

Sabres skaters · by points
Player	Pos	G	A	PTS	+/-	SOG	HITS	BLK	PIM	FO%	TOI
Tage Thompson #72	C	2	1	3	+3	7	1	0	2	45.5	18:45
Josh Doan #91	R	1	1	2	+2	3	4	0	2	0.0	15:27
Bowen Byram #4	D	1	1	2	+3	2	3	1	0	0.0	24:36
Noah Ostlund #86	C	0	2	2	+1	0	0	1	0	66.7	12:56
Alex Tuch #89	R	0	1	1	+1	2	1	1	0	100.0	18:21
Owen Power #25	D	0	1	1	+1	0	0	1	0	0.0	24:12
Josh Dunne #44	C	0	0	0	0	2	1	0	0	33.3	11:15
Josh Norris #9	C	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	61.5	13:07
Peyton Krebs #19	C	0	0	0	+1	2	2	0	0	0.0	13:59
Ryan McLeod #71	C	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	83.3	16:35
Beck Malenstyn #29	L	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	0.0	13:36
Jordan Greenway #12	L	0	0	0	0	1	4	0	0	0.0	12:28
Zach Benson #6	L	0	0	0	+1	1	0	1	0	0.0	16:11
Jack Quinn #22	R	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0.0	15:21
Mattias Samuelsson #23	D	0	0	0	+1	3	1	2	0	0.0	22:56
Michael Kesselring #8	D	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0.0	12:04
Rasmus Dahlin #26	D	0	0	0	+1	5	0	0	0	0.0	24:43
Zach Metsa #73	D	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0.0	09:28

Sabres goalies
Goalie	DEC	SA	SV	GA	SV%	EV	PP	TOI
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen #1	W	29	28	1	.966	25/26	1/1	60:00

Dallas Stars

Stars skaters · by points
Player	Pos	G	A	PTS	+/-	SOG	HITS	BLK	PIM	FO%	TOI
Mavrik Bourque #22	C	1	0	1	0	3	0	0	0	0.0	15:17
Jason Robertson #21	L	0	1	1	+1	8	0	0	0	0.0	21:16
Miro Heiskanen #4	D	0	1	1	-1	2	0	1	0	0.0	24:50
Colin Blackwell #15	C	0	0	0	0	4	1	0	0	37.5	12:33
Justin Hryckowian #49	C	0	0	0	-1	0	1	1	2	0.0	10:10
Matt Duchene #95	C	0	0	0	-4	1	0	0	0	50.0	15:43
Oskar Bäck #10	C	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	12:54
Radek Faksa #12	C	0	0	0	0	2	1	1	2	60.0	12:33
Roope Hintz #24	C	0	0	0	+1	1	1	0	0	53.3	16:32
Sam Steel #18	C	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	28.6	13:17
Wyatt Johnston #53	C	0	0	0	-3	1	1	1	0	42.9	16:59
Jamie Benn #14	L	0	0	0	-1	0	0	2	0	0.0	11:27
Mikko Rantanen #96	R	0	0	0	-2	1	1	0	0	0.0	20:36
Alexander Petrovic #28	D	0	0	0	-1	1	4	2	0	0.0	13:27
Esa Lindell #23	D	0	0	0	+1	1	0	1	0	0.0	22:58
Ilya Lyubushkin #46	D	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0.0	16:37
Nils Lundkvist #5	D	0	0	0	-1	1	2	1	0	0.0	15:53
Thomas Harley #55	D	0	0	0	-4	2	1	1	0	0.0	22:58

Stars goalies
Goalie	DEC	SA	SV	GA	SV%	EV	PP	TOI
Casey DeSmith #1	L	31	27	4	.871	25/29	2/2	60:00

SOG shots on goal · BLK blocked shots · FO% faceoff win percentage · EV / PP saves over shots by strength. Skaters sorted by points, then goals.

Source NHL (boxscore, play-by-play, game summary). Shot locations are the league's tracked coordinates; the chart and the situation tables are computed by Play-Pause Hockey. Data as of 2026-09-28.