(WGR 550) – Tuesday’s overtime win over the Edmonton Oilers is exactly why this fanbase is so frustrated with the Buffalo Sabres. If you’re a fan, Tuesday’s game would be a reason to be proud of your hockey team. They showed guts, they worked hard, their best players were their best players, and they overcame a lot of adversity to win. They showed they are capable of playing well and capable of being a good team, but fans get so frustrated because they don’t see this enough.

The Sabres still haven’t won three games in a row and Tuesday was only their third win on the road.

Adversity struck this team before the opening faceoff. They got the news that a very important piece on this team, Jason Zucker is hurt with two injuries and going to be out awhile. Josh Norris was in the warmup and Lindy Ruff said Norris was feeling ill and then felt a tweak not related to any other injury, so their best center got pulled from the lineup.

They didn’t blink and came out and played a good first period. Colten Ellis made a couple of nice saves, especially on Adam Henrique off a 2-on-1 and Connor McDavid wasn’t doing Connor McDavid things. All of a sudden Ellis gets run over and takes an elbow to the head from David Tomasek and gets up. Only 33 seconds later, Josh Doan tips in Rasmus Dahlin’s point shot on the power play to take a 1-0 lead. The concussion spotter made Ellis leave at 19:01 and he is now in concussion protocol.

You might remember Ellis was in goal when the Sabres beat the Oilers 5-1 in Buffalo and he made six saves on six shots before leaving. Alex Lyon came in and made a huge save on Zach Hyman before the period ended. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen got dressed and sat in the locker-room for the rest of the game because the third goalie couldn’t be on the bench and was ready if Lyon got hurt.

So now your goalie is out, and it’s more adversity that the team handled well. In the second period Tage Thompson went to the net and converted a rebound, but the play went to replay and it was ruled that Alex Tuch made a hand pass to Thompson and the goal was disallowed. The puck deflected off Tuch’s hand, but technically I guess it’s the right call.

That’s the second game in a row Thompson lost a goal on a challenge, but this team dug down and wasn’t detoured. A few minutes later Thompson scored again when he stripped the puck from Evan Bouchard right in front of the net.

Doan played the part of Zucker in front of the net and collected another power play goal when he made a nifty move pulling the puck through his skates for his 10th of the season. Doan is on a pace that would score him 27 goals this season. In 30 games he has 10 goals and 12 assists for 22 points. In 31 games JJ Peterka has 12 goals and 11 assists for 23 points with the Utah Mammoth.

So hard work, getting players to the net and good goaltending got the Sabres to the second intermission up 3-0.

Adversity wasn’t finished knocking on the Sabres door. For the first time in two games, McDavid was McDavid as it took him 10 seconds to come flying into the zone leaving Zach Benson and Tyson Kozak in his wake and it was 3-1. Vasily Podkolzin then scored and just 1:56 into the period a 3-0 game was now a 3-2 game.

The Sabres had played the night before in Calgary and it would’ve been easy to pack it in and lose the game, but they dug down. They had to kill two more penalties facing the No. 1 power play in the NHL and the penalty killers along with Lyon did the job.

Adversity was going to show up one more time and with two seconds left in the game and Stuart Skinner on the bench for the extra attacker. A puck bounced out to McDavid and he scored his second into an open net. Lyon was out on top of his crease on the ice with players all around him and had no chance.

Marty Biron tweeted out that NHL Ops confirmed to him that the goal was looked at in the situation room and it was determined that there was no goaltender interference.

Off the opening faceoff of overtime, Tuch went hard into the offensive corner and out battled Bouchard. That allowed the Sabres to get possession of the puck. Former Oiler Ryan McLeod made a great play to find Tuch all alone in front of the net and he scored the overtime winner.

Rasmus Dahlin also assisted on the goal giving him three assists on the game. Lyon had lost five straight games and he earned his first win since Oct. 24 against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Lyon stopped 21-of-24 shots in 40:59 of work.

So it was a gutty win by this team that never let adversity get into the way of playing well and getting two points. They did the things that Ruff preaches and got rewarded. Their best players were their best players. The frustration comes in that why do we not see this hockey on a consistent basis? If we did, we’d be talking about a playoff race. Not a team in last place with no hope in the Eastern Conference.