Thompson settles a wild one in Buffalo
Buffalo needed a goalie change, a tie game and a late push, then took it. The Sabres beat the Florida Panthers 5-3 on Monday afternoon, with Tage Thompson scoring the winner at 6:40 left in regulation.
It started well for the home side. Josh Doan opened the scoring at 5:58 of the first, and Rasmus Dahlin made it 2-1 at 15:55 with a power-play slap shot. Anton Lundell had answered for Florida in between, with Aaron Ekblad on the assist.
Then the middle period turned messy. Sam Reinhart tied it 2-2 at 6:26 with a power-play poke shot, and that was the end of Colton Ellis’s day. The Buffalo starter had allowed two goals on nine shots.
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Goalies out, Luukkonen steadies it
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen came in cold and stopped 13 shots. Ryan McLeod put Buffalo back in front 3-2 at 11:25, helped by Olen Zellweger. Reinhart answered with his second power-play goal at 13:41 to level it at 3-3.
Florida had its own crease problem. Jacob Markstrom left at the first intermission after allowing two goals on 11 shots, and Akira Schmid finished the game with 18 saves.
Noah Ostlund put Buffalo up 4-3 on the power play, and Thompson added the fifth. The Sabres scored on the man advantage twice in the game and made the extra skater count when it mattered.
The Dahlin question
The one cloud for Buffalo is on the blue line. Dahlin, who scored in the first period, left in the second with an upper-body injury, and there was no further update in the initial report. For a defense that leans on him for minutes and power-play time, any absence would be felt quickly.
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