After ending their four game losing streak on the road with a 5-2 win in Nashville Saturday night, the Jets continued their five game road trip tonight in Buffalo. KeyBank Center was the host for tonight’s game on Amazon Prime, as the Jets looked to pick up another much needed win. The now 13-11-0 Jets took on the 10-11-4 Buffalo Sabres, with these two teams separated by just two points in the overall NHL league standings. The Sabres entered tonight’s game on a 3-3 stretch, playing well some games and getting badly outplayed in others.

There were a few tweaks to the Jets lineup tonight, as they continue to try new line combinations for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th forwards lines. Cole Perfetti and Vladislav Namestnikov were centered by Jonathan Toews on line 2, Adam Lowry centered Nino Niederreiter and Alex Iafallo on line 3, and the 4th line had Morgan Barron centering Gustav Nyquist and Tanner Pearson. Elias Salomonsson was replaced by Luke Schenn on the 2nd pairing with Dylan Samberg. Colin Miller remained on the 3rd pairing with Logan Stanley.

Eric Comrie was projected to get the start in goal, and he did, his 5th start since the Jets announced that Hellebuyck will be out for an extended amount of time. Comrie entered tonight’s game with a 5-4-0 record, a 3.05 GAA and an average .894 SV%. Tonight’s game was simply not the Jets night, and the Sabres, who welcomed back Josh Norris to the lineup, easily took tonight’s game in dominating fashion.

Right from puck drop, the Jets didn’t look quite ready for tonight’s game. Dylan DeMelo took a holding call 91 seconds into the game, sending the Sabres on an early powerplay. Just over a minute later, Josh Norris (who was making his return tonight) and Josh Doan set up Jason Zucker in front, who tapped the loose puck in past Eric Comrie to give the Sabres an early 1-0 lead.

Only 16 seconds later, the Sabres doubled their early lead. Conor Timmins and Jack Quinn set up Bowen Byram on the rush, and he wristed one past Comrie to make it 2-0.

Five minutes later the Jets got their 1st powerplay of the night. Rasmus Dahlin was called for interference on Gabriel Vilardi, but the Jets were unable to find the back of the net to get back in this game. Around five minutes after the powerplay was over, Josh Norris gave the Sabres a 3-0 lead. Zach Benson and Tage Thompson made a nice passing play as they went up the ice, and Josh Norris backhanded the puck into the net right in front.

For almost all of the 1st period, the Jets just seemed like an unorganized team. The Sabres outshot the Jets 14-8 in the first 20 minutes, and Eric Comrie’s night was over, as Thomas Milic would enter the net to start the 2nd period.

The 2nd period slowed down at first, and after a three goal 1st period, both teams traded one goal in the 2nd. Kyle Connor scored his 13th of the season at the 11:26 mark of the 2nd after Mark Scheifele set up Josh Morrissey at the point. After some nice puck movement to create space, Morrissey fired a slap shot on net, and Connor deflected the puck just enough to get the Jets on the board.

That goal could’ve gave the Jets some hope of starting a comeback, but that hope may have only lasted less than 2 minutes. Josh Doan gave the puck to Alex Tuch who went from centre ice into the Jets zone. After Tuch’s initial wrist shot was stopped by Milic, Tuch managed to collect the puck from the rebound and wrist it past Milic from a tough angle to give the Sabres a 4-1 lead.

The entire 2nd period went without any penalties, and the Sabres outshot the Jets 7-6 in the 2nd frame. With only 20 minutes to go, it didn’t feel like the Jets had much chance to battle back down 4-1 in Buffalo.

The Jets needed a strong start to the 3rd, but that didn’t happen. Rasmus Dahlin and Zach Benson set up Josh Norris, who entered the Jets zone on a breakaway. Norris went to the backhand, and slid the puck under Milic and into the back of the net to give the Sabres a commanding 5-1 lead.

The frustration began to increase for the Jets, and Logan Stanley took an elbowing penalty 3 minutes later. The Jets killed off this Sabres powerplay, and a few minutes later the Jets got a chance to get one goal closer after Jason Zucker took a delay of game (puck over glass) penalty. Once again tonight, the offence wasn’t there (except for the 1st line) and the game remained 5-1.

With 6 minutes left Logan Stanley took a roughing penalty after a big scrum happened near centre ice. Beck Malenstyn, Vladislav Namestnikov and Logan Stanley would all be sentt to the locker rooms early tonight, receiving 10 minute misconducts as a result. The rest of the game went without much action, and the Sabres held on to secure a 5-1 win at home.

Final shots on goal were 31-24 for the Sabres, as both teams managed 10 shots on goal in the 3rd. The Jets trailed slightly in faceoffs (winning 21/44), but they out hit the Sabres 35-12 while blocking 17 shots to the Sabres 8. Josh Norris was easily tonight’s 1st star, scoring 2 goals and adding 1 assist for 3 points in just his 2nd game of the 2025-26 season. Tonight was overall a pretty bad team performance from the Jets, who will now look to end their road trip with a win in Montreal on Wednesday.

With the Jets five game road trip four games done, the Jets regular season schedule continues with a game Wednesday night against the Montreal Canadiens. Puck drop for this game will be once again just after 6:30 pm CT. Stay tuned here at Jets Nation for all of the latest Jets news, plus previews and recaps on each Jets game this season.