Arike Ogunbowale scored 22 points, Paige Bueckers and Odyssey Sims tallied 20 apiece and the Dallas Wings opened the new season with a 107-104 win over the Indiana Fever on Saturday in Indianapolis.

Jessica Shepard racked up 13 points, nine rebounds and nine assists for Dallas, which burned Indiana with 25 fastbreak points.

Sims, a crucial part of Indiana’s playoff run last season, led the Wings with 12 points after halftime and made one of two free throws in the dying seconds of regulation. Caitlin Clark missed a 32-footer and Indiana fouled Bueckers on the rebound, but Bueckers missed both foul shots with 1.4 seconds left, giving the Fever one last chance.

With Clark smothered by defenders on the inbound play, Kelsey Mitchell uncorked a 3 to tie but it bounced off the rim.

Mitchell powered the Fever’s comeback with 11 of her game-high 30 points coming in the fourth. Aliyah Boston had 23 points and Clark tallied 20 points, seven assists and four rebounds while shooting 2-of-9 from deep in her first WNBA game since July 15, 2025, due to a season-ending groin injury.

Neither team led by more than nine as two efficient offenses went tit for tat. The Wings shot 59.1% from the field and 12 for 23 from 3-point range, while the Fever made 51.9% overall but just 7 of 24 3-point attempts.

Clark left the bench in the waning minutes of the third period and returned wearing a black wrap around her lower back. She reentered the game and hit the final layup of the third to forge a tie at 80. That gave Clark 10 points for the third and put her past 1,000 points in her 54th career game.

Clark was not part of the Fever’s first lineup for the fourth quarter but emerged from the locker room soon after, presumably after further treatment.

Sims’ fastbreak layup made it 97-90 with four minutes and change to play, but Mitchell clawed the Fever back with a 3-pointer, one free throw and a three-point play to get it to 99-97 Dallas. Bueckers responded with a 20-footer.

Boston missed the second half of a pair of free throws but stole the rebound from Bueckers and laid it in to cut it to 101-100. Then the Fever forced their second five-second violation of the quarter, but came up empty on offense.

Alanna Smith scored for Dallas and Sims hit a shot over Clark to make it 105-100 with 36.4 seconds left.

After the Fever pushed in front early in the second on consecutive 3-pointers by Cunningham and Boston, No. 1 overall pick Azzi Fudd responded with the first points of her career on a corner 3, and Ogunbowale’s triple restored the tie game at 35.

But Fudd finished her WNBA debut with just those three points and one steal in 18 minutes.

Neither team led by more than five points until the final minute of the half, when Aziaha James knocked down two 3-pointers and Ogunbowale added one in between to build a 60-51 Dallas lead.

–Field Level Media

The Buffalo Sabres know they have to be much better with the puck Sunday night as their second-round series shifts north to Montreal for Game 3, all square at one game apiece with the Canadiens.

The Sabres played a heavy game against Montreal in Game 2 Friday night, but it was to no avail as the Canadiens blew out the Atlantic Division champs 5-1.

Buffalo dished out 44 hits on the red-white-and-blue-clad Habs, who returned just 18. Mattias Samuelsson recorded a game-high 10, while Tage Thompson had six.

Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky said most of the 44 were a little late.

“I feel like all of their hits happen after the plays,” the top-line winger said. “Especially me, I mean, I made a play, and then, three seconds after, I got hit. … Sometimes, you’ve got to take a hit to make a play.”

Thompson played badly in the loss: He gridded at minus-4 and turned the puck over by simply falling to the ice, leading to Alexandre Carrier’s third-period goal that made the 4-1 lead insurmountable.

“I just wasn’t executing,” said Thompson. “I think everything I touched turned into disaster tonight. So, tough one. I’ve got to be better.”

Added Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff: “Three or four of the goals were just the result bad puck play. You just can’t beat yourself.”

Coach Martin St. Louis and his Habs trek back home to Quebec with all the momentum after wresting home-ice advantage from the Sabres after their 109-point season, second only to the Carolina Hurricanes’ 113 in a standout showing by the Eastern Conference.

Alex Newhook and Mike Matheson tallied within the first five minutes of Game 2, scoring less than three minutes apart as Buffalo’s defense and goaltender Alex Lyon collapsed. Newhook added another early in the second.

It was the start the Habs needed to even the series and carry momentum home after an exhausting first-round win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games.

Goalie Jakub Dobes, outstanding in stopping 181 of 196 shots (.923 save percentage) against the Lightning, denied 28 of 29 against the Sabres on Friday.

The Czech goaltender said the whole squad was inspired by an “unbelievable” pregame speech by St. Louis but would not reveal its nature.

However, second-line center Jake Evans spilled the beans.

“He just said it’s going to be a war out there and we’ve got to play like it,” Evans told Sportsnet. “I don’t know if it was meant to be more physical, but we were all just (mentally) dialed in from the start.”

Montreal countered by holding a blocked-shot edge, 18-11, with defensemen Noah Dobson and Matheson posting nearly half of them with five and three, respectively.

Matheson’s tally was the game-winning one, but the 2012 first-round draft pick of the Florida Panthers (23rd overall) said Dobes was typically instrumental.

“He brings a lot of energy to our team,” said Matheson, a Pointe-Claire, Que., native who has one goal, one assist and 12 penalty minutes in nine playoff matches this postseason. “He kind of exudes a lot of swagger into our lineup.”

The Sabres’ Sam Carrick, out with an arm injury after fighting New York Islanders captain Anders Lee on March 31, is “on the cusp,” according to Ruff, of slotting back in following a return to practice Tuesday.

–Field Level Media

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.–The Bus Stop chicane at Watkins Glen International is designed to slow drivers down.

In Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session, however, it was the section of the 2.45-mile road course where defending race winner Shane van Gisbergen gained light years over the competition, relatively speaking, in securing the pole for Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen (3 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The New Zealander, celebrating his 37th birthday, navigated the seven-turn circuit in 71.165 seconds (123.937 mph) on the first of two qualifying laps to beat Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell (123.488 mph) for the top starting spot by 0.259 seconds.

“I did nail it on my first lap,” van Gisbergen said of the Bus Stop at the end of the long backstretch, where he gained more than two tenths of a second on the field. “The first half of the lap was pretty average, I thought.

“My second lap, I had less tire grip, but it was a better lap, so I think I was ahead until the Bus Stop, and then I mucked it up. My first lap was really good there–probably got it right, and maybe the others got it wrong. But generally, that is a really strong point for me.”

Team Penske’s Austin Cindric (123.452 mph) claimed the third starting spot, followed by van Gisbergen’s teammates at Trackhouse Racing, Ross Chastain (123.445 mph) and Connor Zilisch (123.386 mph).

Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney, last year’s pole winner, were sixth and seventh, giving Team Penske three of the top seven starters. The Joe Gibbs Racing trio of Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs completed the top 10.

van Gisbergen expects tire wear to play a major role in Sunday’s race, which has been lengthened from 90 to 100 laps, featuring stage lengths of 20, 30 and 50 laps.

“The fall-off was insane,” van Gisbergen said. “I didn’t expect that. The marbles and the fall-off was extreme today. It’s kind of like Bristol when it’s cold. The tires would fall apart. It was very interesting. We fell off four seconds or so.

“Crazy. It’ll be a good race to watch but probably a hard one to manage.”

Series leader Tyler Reddick, a five-time winner this season and the most recent road course winner at Circuit of the Americas, qualified 15th. Chase Elliott, last Sunday’s winner at Texas Motor Speedway, will start 27th on Sunday.