Sabres vs. Sharks: Colten Ellis Posts a 23-Save Shutout as Buffalo Snaps Its Skid in San Jose

The last time Colten Ellis started a game for Buffalo, on Oct. 12 against Florida, he got the hook in the second period. Then he waited more than two weeks for another chance. On Tuesday night in San Jose, he made sure nobody would be talking about that one anymore.

Ellis stopped all 23 shots he faced, Olen Zellweger scored the only goal he needed 50 seconds into the second period, and the Buffalo Sabres blanked the San Jose Sharks 2-0 at SAP Center. It was the second shutout of Ellis' career, his first this season, and it snapped a three-game winless skid for a team that badly needed a clean night.

Chaos Early, Then Control

Nobody would have guessed this was headed for a 2-0 final after the first 20 minutes. The opening period was wide open, with Yaroslav Askarov making 16 saves in it, according to the AP. Both teams got power plays. Neither did anything with them. Buffalo and San Jose each went 0-for-3 on the night.

The Sabres finally broke through right out of the intermission. Konsta Helenius hit Zellweger in stride, the defenseman carried it up the left side and beat Askarov on the blocker side from the top of the left circle at 0:50 of the second. Owen Power picked up the secondary assist.

"I still had energy. That was a pretty big gap so I just joined the play there," Zellweger said. "You want to try to create and be a threat against every team in the League."

From there it was mostly Buffalo pressure at one end, with Ellis cleaning up whatever leaked through at the other. The Sabres finished with 41 shots to San Jose's 23. The Sharks just could not convert the looks they did get.

The Turning Point: Two Saves That Changed the Night

A one-goal lead on the road is fragile, and San Jose had two genuine chances to tie it. The first came later in the second, when Macklin Celebrini set up Collin Graf in front and Ellis robbed him to keep it 1-0, per the AP. The second came with 4:01 left in the third, when Kiefer Sherwood got a point-blank look and Ellis stoned him too.

Without either of those saves, this is a different recap. With them, Buffalo got to pull the trigger on the clincher. At 19:05, with Askarov on the bench, Zach Benson outmuscled Ivar Stenberg and sent the puck into the empty net for his first goal of the season. Tage Thompson and Power assisted.

Coach Lindy Ruff put Ellis' night in perspective. "He's a competitive kid," Ruff said. "He's given us some good hockey games, and tonight he gave us an excellent game. He made some timely saves at real big moments that could've generated some energy for them, and he took it away from them."

Stars of the Night

Ellis is the headliner, obviously. Twenty-three saves, zero goals allowed, and a full answer to the question of whether that Florida game would linger.

Askarov deserves real credit on the other end. He stopped 39 of 40 shots for a .975 save percentage and still lost, which is about as cruel as the sport gets. Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky did not pin it on him: "Yeah, we're not generating, but we also just give up 40 shots and a lot of chances again, so that's the bigger issue," he said.

Power was quietly excellent with two assists, three blocked shots and 24:49 of ice time. Per NHL.com, he became the third-fastest defenseman in Sabres history to reach 150 NHL points, doing it in 335 games, behind Phil Housley (160) and Rasmus Dahlin (262).

Zellweger's goal was the 10th by a Buffalo defenseman this season. NHL.com noted only Utah (11) and Edmonton (10) had that many entering Tuesday. Thompson, meanwhile, picked up an assist in his 500th career game with Buffalo and won 11 faceoffs.

There was also a subplot on the San Jose blue line. Defenseman Michael Kesselring, acquired from the Sabres in a June 17 trade, faced his former team for the first time and put three shots on goal in 16:25. "Obviously, personally, I wanted to show that they made a mistake, but we didn't win, and that's what really matters," he said.

The Numbers That Tell It

• 41-23. Buffalo's shot advantage. San Jose spent long stretches defending.
• 21-6. Sharks giveaways versus Sabres giveaways. That is how a team gets buried on the shot clock.
• 35-16. San Jose won the hits column by a mile. It did not translate into pressure on Ellis.
• 20-12. Buffalo blocked 20 shots, and Ruff noticed. "When you start seeing that desperation to keep the puck out of your net, you start winning games," he said.

What It Means

Buffalo moves to 5-4-3 with 13 points and 2-1-3 on the road. The Sabres had gone 0-1-2 during their skid and lost six of their previous eight before this one, per NHL.com, so a tidy road shutout is exactly the kind of reset they needed. The AP also noted it was Buffalo's eighth win in the last nine meetings with San Jose.

"I think this was a step in the right direction defensively. We competed hard today," Dahlin said.

San Jose falls to 6-6-1 with 13 points, 2-3-0 at home, and has dropped two straight. This was the Sharks' first game back from a six-game road trip, and they shuffled the lines, starting rookie Stenberg alongside Celebrini and Graf. It did not produce much. The AP pointed out the Sharks have only one regulation win in 13 games this season, a stat that sums up a team living on the margins.

Redemption, Served Cold

Hollywood loves a redemption arc, but it usually takes two hours and a training montage. Ellis did it in one game: the guy who got pulled in his last start came back after more than two weeks between appearances and posted a shutout. Sometimes the script really is that simple.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by NHL.com; additional details from the Associated Press.