Who is Sabres' goalie? Meet Alex Lyon, the Ivy League product saving Buffalo in the NHL playoffs

It's Alex Lyon who has taken over the starting goalie role early in the playoffs for Buffalo.

Lyon is 33 years old and was never drafted, but he is playing in the NHL postseason 10 years after his college career ended.

Alex Lyon hometown, college

Lyon hails from Minnesota, where he attended Lake of the Woods High School.

It was a small school, with 15 of the 25 male students in his graduating class playing varsity hockey.

From there, Lyon moved on to Yale University in the Ivy League, and he twice won the Ken Dryden Award for the best goalie in the ECAC.

Alex Lyon NHL career timeline

Lyon decided to forgo his senior season at Yale to sign with the Philadelphia Flyers in April of 2016.

He made his first NHL start in 2018 but spent a lot of time in the AHL.

Lyon then spent time in the Carolina Hurricanes' organization, winning a Calder Cup with the Chicago Wolves with a 28-save shutout.

Then it was on to the Florida Panthers, for whom he made a brief appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals behind Sergei Bobrovsky.

He spent two seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, one mostly injured and one with 30 appearances at the NHL level.

Lyon signed with the Sabres before the 2025 season and won 10 games in a row midway through the campaign to set a new franchise record.

"It's fun to play sports in that vessel of it's us versus everybody else," Lyon said. "That's a really fun way to play."

Alex Lyon's crazy AHL record

Maybe the wildest feat of Lyon's career?

He saved 94-of-95 shots in a 2018 AHL playoff game for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms against the Charlotte Checkers. The game went five overtimes, lasting 146 minutes and 48 seconds for the longest game in AHL history. Lyon and the Phantoms won, 2-1.

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