Blue Jackets vs Sabres Best Pick, Prediction and Odds

No bet on this game. With Alex Lyon out, our number has the Sabres within half a point of the price, and that is no edge.

The Buffalo Sabres are -175 and the Columbus Blue Jackets +145 at DraftKings. The two prices add up to 104.5%. With the margin out, that is 60.9% for Buffalo and 39.1% for Columbus. Our number is 60.4% for Buffalo. The 0.5-point gap toward Columbus is the whole argument, and a bet needs 5.

How 60.4% is reached

Our home win chance is the average of two 2025-26 rates: the home team’s win rate in its own arena and the visitor’s loss rate on the road. Overtime and shootout wins count as wins. Neutral-site games are left out. A side is a bet when our number and the market’s differ by at least 5 points.

The margin is the extra a book builds into both prices so that the pair adds up to more than 100%. A fair pair adds up to exactly 100. At -175 and +145 this pair adds up to 104.5%, and removing the extra gives the 60.9% and 39.1% above.

Lyon is on injured reserve with an upper-body injury (ESPN injury list, entry dated 15 October 2026, return date given as 22 November; read 5 November 2026, 17:32 UTC). When a team’s starting goalie is out, our method is run again on the games without him. Lyon appeared in 36 of Buffalo’s 82 games in 2025-26, more than Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s 35 and Colten Ellis’s 16, and in 18 of the 41 home games the method reads. That leaves 23 home games without him. The minimum for an NHL re-run is 10, so the sample is large enough to use.

In those 23 home games the Sabres went 16-4-3, a 69.57% home win rate. Columbus went 20-17-4 on the road, a 51.2% road loss rate. The average of 69.57% and 51.2% is 60.4% for Buffalo. The price says 60.9%.

The full home season gives the same verdict. Buffalo went 26-10-5 at KeyBank Center, a 63.4% home win rate. On that figure our number is 57.3% for Buffalo, 3.6 points short of the price, toward Columbus. That is still under the 5-point threshold. Both versions of the method pass.

Every input is from 2025-26. This season is not in the figures. Buffalo is 7-5-3, 3-4-0 at home, and lost 2-1 to Ottawa on Wednesday 4 November. Luukkonen has played 10 of their games in goal and Ellis 6. Columbus is 6-7-0, 1-4-0 on the road, and beat Colorado 7-2 on Tuesday 3 November. Jet Greaves has played 8 of their games and Cam Talbot 7.

Buffalo at home, Columbus on the road

Over the full season the Sabres at home scored 3.63 a game and allowed 2.90, a surplus of 0.73. The Blue Jackets on the road scored 2.88 and allowed 3.10, a deficit of 0.22. These are the two halves the method reads.

The halves it leaves out: Buffalo on the road went 24-13-4, a 58.5% win rate, scoring 3.39 and allowing 2.98. Columbus at home went 20-13-8, a 48.8% win rate, scoring 3.29 and allowing 3.07. Neither half moves our number.

The season around it

Buffalo went 50-23-9 with 109 points and a goal difference of +47. In the playoffs the Sabres beat Boston 4-2 in the first series, then lost 4-3 to Montreal. Columbus went 40-30-12 with 92 points, scored exactly as many as it allowed, and missed the playoffs.

The Sabres went 15-3-9 in one-goal games and won 8 of the 17 that went past regulation. They won by two goals or more in 35 of 82 games and lost by two or more in 20. Columbus went 18-13-12 in one-goal games, won 12 of its 24 past 60 minutes, won by two or more in 22 and lost by two or more in 17.

Columbus won two of the three meetings in 2025-26. The Blue Jackets won 4-3 in overtime in Buffalo on 28 October 2025 and 5-1 at home on 3 January 2026. Buffalo won 5-0 at home on 9 April 2026. The two games in Buffalo are inside Columbus’s road loss rate, which both versions of our number use. The game in Columbus is in neither half.

Pick: No bet

No bet on the moneyline. The gap is 0.5 points toward Columbus on Buffalo’s home games without Lyon, against a threshold of 5, and 3.6 points toward Columbus on the full home season. Both are short of the rule.

The line read Sabres -175 and Blue Jackets +145 on 5 November 2026 at 17:32 UTC, DraftKings via ESPN. It opened at the same prices: -175 and +145. The market has not moved.

What kills the bet

Here the question runs the other way: what would make a bet. Against Columbus at +145, the Sabres become a bet at -103 or longer. They are -175.

Against Buffalo at -175, the Blue Jackets become a bet at +197 or longer. They are +145, so the price would have to drift a long way before our number disagrees with it by 5 points.

The rest is on the ice. Besides Lyon, ESPN’s injury list has Konsta Helenius out for Buffalo, and Justin Danforth, Matt Grzelcyk and Jack Rathbone on injured reserve. Columbus has no one on the list. Check the lineups before you bet.

The total and the puck line

The total is 6.5, over -102 and under -118. Buffalo’s games went over 6.5 in 38 of 82, a 46.3% rate. Columbus’s went over in 37 of 82, 45.1%. Buffalo’s home games averaged 6.53 goals and Columbus’s road games 5.98.

The average of the two rates is 45.7% for the over. With the margin removed the over is priced at 48.3% and the under at 51.7%, so our number leans to the under by 2.5 points. Pass on the total.

On the puck line, Buffalo is -1.5 at +145 and Columbus +1.5 at -175, which is 39.1% and 60.9% without the margin. Over the full season the Sabres won by two goals or more in 35 of 82 games and the Blue Jackets lost by two or more in 17 of 82. Averaged, Sabres -1.5 lands 31.7% of the time against 39.1% priced, a gap of 7.4 points toward Blue Jackets +1.5. That figure uses the full season and has not been re-run without Lyon. Our method stakes the moneyline only, so this is a lean on the same side as the half-point moneyline gap, never a bet of its own. The call on this game is no bet.

Blue Jackets at Sabres, Friday 6 November, 7:00 PM ET, KeyBank Center. Prices: DraftKings via ESPN, read 5 November 2026, 17:32 UTC. Results: ESPN, 2025-26 regular season and playoffs; Buffalo’s goalie appearances from ESPN box scores of all 82 games. Injury list, 2026-27 records and goalie appearances this season: ESPN’s game page, read 5 November 2026, 17:32 UTC.