The Florida Panthers carried much of the play and eventually came away with a 3-2 shootout win over the Buffalo Sabres at Amerant Bank Arena.
Buffalo grabbed the lead with a late first period power-play goal when Rasmus Dahlin worked a give-and go with Jason Zucker. Gustav Forsling was watching the give, but gave up defending on the go and Dahlin easily finished off Zucker’s return pass at 19:41, with the second assist going to J.J. Peterka.
After scoring into an empty net in his last outing, Carter Verhaeghe finally beat a goaltender five minutes into the second to even the tilt. Evan Rodrigues carried into the offensive zone and dropped to Seth Jones at the right point and his shot missed wide and came out the other side. Verhaeghe corraled the rebound and went to the backhand, cutting by Connor Clifton and pulling Ukko-Pekka Luokkonen to the ice before he roofed a shot into the beckoning twine, leaving UPL spinning like a top in frustration.
Jesse Puljujärvi notched his first as Panther to give his new club the lead at 14:47. With one hand on his stick, Puljujärvi manged to swat Uvis Balinskis’ wrister past Luukkonen after Verhaeghe fed back to the defenseman. In addition to lighting the lamp, Puljujärvi was credited with a game-high nine hits.
The Sabres would convert with one second left on a 5-on-3 with 7:42 remaining in regulation. Florida had done a really good job defending with A.J. Greer and Mackie Samoskevich in the sin bin following a scrum, and were close to the getting the kill, but Buffalo regained possession after Vitek Vanecek made an impressive blocker save on Dahlin. Alex Tuch retrieved and got the puck to Dahlin, who set up Peterka for a successful one-timer that beat Vanecek short-side from the lower portion of the right circle.
Three saves from Vanecek and two from Luukkonen got the teams through the overtime session and then Anton Lundell would bag the only goal of the shootout when he beat the Buffalo keeper with a nasty forehand shot in the top of the first round.
Vanecek made saves on Jack Quinn, Peterka, and Tuch to secure his second victory with the Panthers, extending the Cats’ winning streak to three games in the process.
Florida finished the season series against the Sabres with a 3-1 record and pulled into a tie for second place in the Atlantic Division with Tampa Bay. Both teams have 98 points. The Lightning will host Buffalo today at Amalie Arena.
Wings & Things
- Anton Lundell earned First Star honors for his shootout winner. Nothing against Lundy, but that’s two games in a row that the local media has rewarded the wrong player. Lundell finished with one shot, one hit and won 66.7% of his faceoffs.
- I know it doesn’t really matter, but the real first star was either Carter Verhaeghe, who had a hand in both goals and registered three shots and a hit, or Vitek Vanececk, who stopped 26 shots, with quite a few of them coming off the sticks of wide-open Sabres.
- Sticking with Vanecek, that was his first win since his Florida debut, when he shut out Buffalo 4-0 on March 8. He has a 12-2-1 career record against the Sabres.
- Going back to Verhaeghe, his goal was his 50th point of the season and his assist was the 300th point of his career. It was his first multipoint performance since February 2.
- Rasmus Dahlin has posted a goal and an assist in four of his six games in April. He has racked up 14 points in his last 11 games, and is second in scoring for the Sabres with 66 points.
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