BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Rasmus Ristolainen had another busy night. A clutch goal made everything all right.I feel great right now and go again tomorrow night, the defenseman said.Ristolainen scored from the left circle 57 seconds into overtime, and the Buffalo Sabres beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 on Tuesday.Ristolainen played almost 30 minutes in a 3-2 overtime loss at Washington on Monday night and then logged a similar number against Edmonton. But he finished off the Oilers with his first goal of the season.Hes carrying the load for us back there, coach Dan Bylsma said, noting the Sabres are missing three of their regular defensemen due to injuries. Hes had some tough shifts. Hes had some tough battles. And it got a lot lighter when he scored that goal.The Sabres scored twice in a span of 86 seconds, with Evander Kane forcing overtime by scoring with 29 seconds left in regulation. Kane had two goals and Brian Gionta also scored as Buffalo rallied after squandering a 2-0 first-period lead.Ristolainen, who also had two assists, scored with Edmontons Adam Larsson serving a holding penalty.Playing give-and-go with Ryan OReilly just inside Edmontons blue line, Ristolainen was parked atop the left circle when he blasted a shot that banked in off the far post.Anders Nilsson stopped 34 shots, closing his legs to foil Edmonton star Connor McDavid on a short-handed breakaway in the third period.Leon Draisaitl, Milan Lucic and Jordan Eberle scored for the Oilers, who are 3-0-2 in their last five road games. McDavid had two assists, and Cam Talbot finished with 22 saves.The five-game point streak is the Oilers longest on the road since going 5-0-2 from March 6 to April 1, 2012.I didnt think we sat back. I thought we played and continued to play the same game, Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. It comes down to them pulling their goalie and executing. And we have to live with that.What troubled McLellan was Larssons penalty, which he called senseless, and how flat the Oilers were in falling behind 2-0.That wasnt supposed to happen given that Edmonton had more rest than the Sabres. Edmonton arrived in Buffalo on Monday a day after a 2-1 overtime home loss to Minnesota.Eberle and Lucic scored 105 seconds apart to tie the game in the second period. Then the Oilers appeared to take control midway through the third when McDavids hard pass from right point was deflected in by Draisaitl with Kane serving a cross-checking penalty.Kane was pleased to make up for that miscue.The refs make calls through the course of the game, whether theyre right or theyre wrong, Kane said. But youve got to find a way to respond.It was the second meeting between McDavid and Buffalos Jack Eichel, the first two players selected in the 2015 draft. Eichel had an assist on Ristolainens goal.In their first meeting on March 1, McDavid scored the opening goal 22 seconds in and then sealed the 2-1 win 3:48 into overtime.Game notes Sabres D Dmitry Kulikov has chance to return on Friday after missing 12 games with lower back injury. ... McDavid missed last seasons game against Eichel at Edmonton because of a broken collarbone. Eichel was sidelined with a sprained ankle in Buffalos 6-2 win at Edmonton in October. ... McDavid snapped a two-game point drought. The NHLs points leader this season has never gone without a point in three straight in 73 career games.UP NEXTOilers: At Philadelphia on Thursday night.Sabres: Hosts Washington on Friday night. Zack Martin Jersey . The home side created most of the chances but struggled to break down Braunschweigs resilient defence, resulting in the Bundesligas 1,000th scoreless draw. Tony Dorsett Jersey .J. -- Pitcher Carl Pavano is retiring after 14 major league seasons. http://www.cheapcowboysjerseyselite.com/?tag=cheap-geoff-swaim-jersey . LOUIS -- St. Xavier Woods Jersey . Brad Jacobs and his Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., team took control of the game early. Cheap Nike Cowboys Jerseys . -- Ty Montgomery had 290 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns, and fifth-ranked Stanford held on to beat No. INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Its right there, in bold type, on the College Football Playoff website.Every Game Counts. Well, and sorry if this seems a little weird, truth is that maybe not quite every game. Maybe the game that does not count is a conference championship game, like Saturday nights Big Ten matchup of Penn State and Wisconsin, and try to explain that one.Because, in the very next paragraph, the playoff websites criteria go on to proclaim, The selection committee ranks the teams based on conference championships won . . .In other words, a conference championship is the key factor.Except when it isnt.Critics used to mock the people who run the college football bowl games because they paraded around looking like peacocks in all those brightly colored blazers with their oversize logos, spending fall weekends wining and dining athletic directors.Well, those guys look like Einstein compared to the clowns now in charge of the college playoff.They played the Big Ten championship game Saturday night at the dome in Indianapolis, and as game time approached, tickets could be had for less than $10, which should give you some idea of what the public thought of it.And about a dozen hours after the end of the game, Ohio State, which failed even to qualify for the conference title game, is expected to be chosen one of the four teams for the college playoff.The Big Ten champion will finish the season with a high place in the national rankings and a boost in its recruiting. It just will not be given a chance to play for the national championship, not be allowed a Cinderella champion like Texas Western in 1966 or a Villanova in 1985 in the NCAA basketball tournament.The consolation prize will be a trip to the Rose Bowl.Thats not bad.And, an argument can be made that Ohio State was the best team in the Big Ten this year, anyway, and maybe it was, although it lost to Penn State and beat Michigan only because of a few dunderhead plays by the Wolverines in critical spots. But the point is the Buckeyes did not even win their conference championship and they are going to get a chance to play for the national championship and the team(s) that finished ahead of them in the conference are not.You have to wonder what the geniuses who dreamed up the college playoff were thinking when, by design, they guaranteed a degree of controversy by setting up a four-team playoff among five power conferences. In other words, you know you are starting out by leaving out one of the conference champions. Period.Its a small step from there to leaving out another.The playoff, of course, was supposedly designed to eliminate the controversy that occurred in the past when the national champion was decided by a vote instead of, oh, say, an actual game. Which is how an undefeated Nebraska was selected over an undefeated Penn State in 1994 or several years when two groups of voters seleected different teams as national champions, giving a little for everybody.ddddddddddddA word, supposedly, appears in the previous paragraph because it would never pass a lie detector test. Lets face it, the playoff was set up to give a small group power and a bigger group money, because nothing much happens in college sports that does not really involve power and money.The five major conferences brought six bowls into their playoff orbit and only under pressure allowed one of the dozen spots to go to a school not a member of their cartel. But they certainly did not want one of the outliers getting super rich on the playoff, which is why they limited the playoff field to four teams and put the rest into a so-called Group of 6 bowl lineup which they controlled -- and, of course, sold for a huge sum to television.One interesting sidelight is that the people who run this sham championship arrangement, try as they might, could not fool everybody. Youd think, ordinarily, the championship game of the richest conference would be a huge magnet for fans, but since the fans realized it had so little to do with the national championship they smelled it for what it is.On Stubhub earlier in the week, there were more than 15,000 tickets available for the Penn State-Wisconsin matchup. As late as Saturday morning, more than 5,000 were still available, with sideline seats going for as little as, get this, $9.71.You can be sure that would not have been the case were the winner assured of going on to play for a bigger prize, but as it was, even Penn State and Wisconsin fans kept their wallets in their pockets because, since the meaning of the game was diminished, theyd prefer to save for, say, a trip to Pasadena instead of Indianapolis.Going into the game, the coaches, of course, tried to downplay the bigger picture by simply talking about the import of a conference championship -- huge, said Penn States James Franklin -- and deferring any questions about the playoff possibilities.But it didnt take a deep reading of Franklins comments to know how he felt.You could make a really good argument that the Big Ten, specifically the Big Ten East, may be the best conference in all of college football right now, Franklin said.He is probably right. The Big Ten is probably the best conference in college football right now, just a couple years after people were writing obituaries about the leagues weakness. Its just not a good enough conference, apparently, to allow its champion to play for the national title.--Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than five decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange. Wholesale Jerseys China Wholesale Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys China Jerseys Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping Wholesale NFL Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys ' ' '