After seeing their winning come to an end after three games at the hands of the Florida Panthers, the Buffalo Sabres were back in action against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Coming into the game, Tampa had the second and final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with a record 32-24-5 with 69 points.
As for the Sabres, they were 27-28-4 with 58 points going into tonight's game. Jordan Greenway took a hooking penalty, giving the Lightning a power play. Brayden Point made Greenway and the Sabres pay as he scored his 31st goal of the season, making it 1-0 Tampa.
Buffalo responded a couple of minutes later as Alex Tuch evened things up, and that's all the scoring there was in the first 20 minutes of play. Peyton Krebs made a couple of nice passes, including on Tuch's goal, so it was nice to see him playing well.
There was not a lot of action in the second period. Unfortunately for the Sabres however, they would see themselves losing once again as the Lightning scored with just a couple of minutes remaining in the period after a deflection got past goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as it was 2-1 Bolts after two periods of play.
After a lousy start to the first period, Buffalo started to find their game. As a result, they went on their first power play of the game. Tage Thompson made it 2-2 with a filthy snipe that got past Andrei Vasilevsky, evening things up once again.
The Sabres and Lightning needed overtime to determine a winner. Thompson almost ended it with a beautiful move but Nikita Kucherov hooked him, giving Buffalo a chance to win it on the power play. Casey Mittelstadt set Rasmus Dahlin up with a perfect pass, and he didn't miss as the Sabres won 3-2.
Overall, it was a snoozy start to the game for Buffalo. Tampa Bay wasn't doing anything either, it was just a boring hockey game in general. But the Sabres ramped it up and left the State of Florida with two wins in Tampa Bay.
Buffalo will come home on Saturday night as they will welcome in the defending Stanley Cup champs Vegas Golden Knights.