Game Preview: Buffalo Sabres @ Pittsburgh Penguins 3/5/2026
Who: Buffalo Sabres (36-19-6, 78 points, 2nd place Atlantic Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (31-16-13, 75 points, 2nd place Metropolitan Division)
When: 7:00 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: National game on ESPN, streaming on ESPN+
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Pens’ Path Ahead: Another weekend back-to-back awaits, this time with home games against the Flyers on Saturday (5:30pm start) and then the clocks jump forward for a body 22-hour-later 4:30pm Sunday start against the Bruins. After that, the Pens start a five-game road trip from March 10-18 that begins and ends in Carolina with a lot of miles in between (Vegas next Thursday, Utah next Saturday and Colorado the following Monday) stops in the Tarheel state.
Opponent Track: In a sea of surprising teams this season, no team is more shockingly over-performing original expectations than the once-lowly Sabres. It’s looking like Western NY will see the playoffs for the first time since 2011, their Sabres have won all four games coming out of the Olympic break and showing no signs of slowing down. Most recently Buffalo beat Vegas 3-2 on Tuesday, they also took down both Florida teams on the road last week.
Season Series: The Penguins are 2-0 against Buffalo, looking for a season sweep tonight after beating Buffalo 4-2 back on November 26th and taking a 5-2 win on February 5th. Lately beating up on the Sabres would garner a shrug, it stands out a lot more this year.
Silly Stat: The Pens are 7-2-1 with their yellow third jerseys this season. For an even deeper dive, the Pens happen to be 6-0-0 on Thursday’s on the same day ‘The Pitt’, an HBOMax hospital drama set in Pittsburgh, has been released. That streak will be on the line with another episode of the show coming out today.
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Getting to know the Sabres
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Peytron Krebs – Tage Thompson – Alex Tuch
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Noah Ostlund – Josh Norris – Josh Doan
Zach Benson – Tyson Kozak – Brock Malenstyn
DEFENSEMEN
Matthias…
