A four-goal cushion nearly gone
Tampa Bay led Buffalo 4-0 at one stage on Wednesday night and still found itself sweating. Then Tage Thompson pulled the Sabres within 4-3, and the kind of collapse every road team dreads was suddenly very real.
Nikita Kucherov shut the door himself. He scored at 1:25, 4:11 and 14:13 of the third, a natural hat trick with nobody else finding the net in between, and he had a hand in all four Lightning goals in the period. The final read 8-3, a scoreline that hides how shaky the middle of the night was.
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Carlson reaches 800, Cirelli hits 600
The milestones piled up on the visiting bench. John Carlson posted the first five-point game of his career and crossed 800 career points in the process. Anthony Cirelli picked up three assists in his 600th NHL game. Brandon Hagel chipped in two goals and an assist, and Andrei Vasilevskiy turned aside 28 shots.
The win was Tampa Bay’s fourth in five games, which sets the Lightning up nicely for a trip to Columbus on Thursday.
Buffalo’s goaltending problem
For the Sabres, the numbers in the crease were brutal. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen gave up five goals on 14 shots before being pulled early in the third. His replacement, Colten Ellis, fared no better, allowing three on eight. Josh Doan and Jason Zucker also scored for Buffalo, who have now dropped three of their last four (1-3-0).
Elsewhere on the slate, Edmonton beat Philadelphia 3-2 in overtime on Evan Bouchard’s 11th goal of the season, improving to 14-3-3. Their 31 points through 20 games match the second-best start in franchise history.
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