Down three centers to start the game, and with their lines in a bit of a blender, the Tampa Bay Lightning still found a way to pull two points out of a game as Darren Raddysh tied it at the death, and Nikita Kucherov found Jake Guentzel in open ice in overtime. Guentzel didn’t miss as he beat Colton Ellis through the five-hole to give the Lightning the 4-3 overtime victory.
The assist was Kucherov’s fourth point of the night as he had a goal and three assists to move to 90 points on the season, putting him just five points behind league leader Connor McDavid. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves, including a huge blocker stop on Tage Thompson in overtime, to extend his personal point streak to 16 games. Oliver Bjorkstrand had the other goal for the Lightning as he scored his eighth on the power play.
With the Lightning without Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, and Nick Paul due to injury Guentzel centered a line between Brandon Hagel and Kucherov. Coach Cooper decided to go with a 12/6 line-up as Curtis Douglas and Scott Sabourin joined Jack Finley on a line. Bjorkstrand moved up to join Dominic James and Gage Goncalves. As usual, Yanni Gourde, Zemgus Girgensons, and Pontus Holmberg skated together. Hedman slid into a third-pairing role with Declan Carlile, skating for 17:39 in his second game back from injury.
Tampa Bay was banged up, Buffalo was coming off a game the night before, so it’s not surprising that offense was somewhat limited through most of the game. Add in a strong start by Buffalo back-up Colton Ellis, who finished with 31 saves on the night, and it was obvious early on that the team that made the fewest mistakes would likely take home the two points.
The Lightning capitalized on the first mistake of the night as Jake Guentzel picked off a clearing attempt and fed it down low to Kucherov. The puck wasn’t on the stick for long as Kucherov whipped it past Ellis for his 29th goal of the season. The lead lasted roughly six minutes before defenseman Mattias Samuelsson snuck the puck through the eye of a needle to beat Vasilevskiy on the short side.
In the second period, the Lightning absolutely shut off the Sabres attack, as they limited them to just four shots on goal and 12 attempts overall. Tampa Bay was a little busier as they put 10 shots on Ellis, but couldn’t put one past him.
The third period started with a push from Buffalo as they were able to string some zone time together and keep the Lightning off of the attack. Oddly enough, it would be after one of the few forays into the Buffalo zone from the Lightning that would lead to the Sabres taking the lead. After Ellis fought off a tough shot from the slot from Brandon Hagel, the Bolts weren’t able to get to the rebound and it led to a break the other way for the visitors. Samuelsson let a shot go from just inside the blueline that somehow eluded Vasilevskiy to make it 2-1.
For much of the game the two teams had played a disciplined game. Penalties by both teams would eventually lead to goals. First it was the Lightning finding the back of the net when Darren Raddysh ripped a 95-MPH shot on net that Ellis couldn’t happen. Oliver Bjorkstrand was in the right spot to jam the rebound home to tie the game.
A few minutes later, Curtis Douglas took a hooking penalty. It wasn’t the most egregious hook, but he got his stick up on the hands of Konsta Helenius in a scoring area, and that is going to get called every time. Buffalo spent the majority of the power play in the Lightning zone and cashed in just before it expired as Tage Thompson threaded a pass that nicked off of Erik Cernak’s stick to Josh Doan. The Son of Shane had position on Ryan McDonagh in front of the net and was able to redirect it past Vasilevskiy.
With just five minutes to go in the game, it looked like the Lightning might not have enough magic left to pull out a win. Well, with Vasilevskiy on the bench, they were able to create a little space for Raddysh, and the Bald Eagle let one fly. For the fifth game in a row, the puck found the back of the net off of his stick and the game was tied with just 26 seconds left in regulation.
Overtime had a lot of action back and forth with Buffalo’s best chance coming from an open Thompson who tried to beat Vasilevskiy on the stick side, but the netminder was able to get his blocker on it to keep it out.
With another shootout looming, Nikita Kucherov pulled off another tough play with ease. Deep in his own zone, his initial attempt to send Guentzel on a breakaway was smothered, but the puck came back to Kucherov, who spun and whipped a no-look pass down the ice to where Guentzel was still waiting well behind the Sabres’ defense. Guentzel buried the puck and the Lightning had the victory.
Some quick notes:
Jake Guentzel went 12-for-26 in the dot, finishing at 46.15%. His line had a 76.92% shot share and generated 62.50% of the scoring chances when they were on the ice. Of course hockey isn’t played in a computer and they were on the ice for two goals against.
Victor Hedman played 17:39 with one shot off of two attempts. Paired with Declan Carlile for most of the night, the duo was on the for a Lightning goal and were above water on shots and scoring chances.
Curtis Douglas, Scott Sabourin, and Jack Finley didn’t see the ice much (their line combined for just 5:01 of ice time) but they weren’t caved in when they were out there as they generated four shots off of four scoring chances. More importantly, they were only on the ice for two shots against.
The Goals
Nikita Kucherov [29] (Jake Guentzel) 1-0 Lightning
Mattias Samuelsson [10] (Unassisted) 1-1
Mattias Samuelsson [11] (Ryan McLeod, Jack Quinn) 2-1 Sabres
Oliver Bjorkstrand [9] (Darren Raddysh, Nikita Kucherov) Power Play, 2-2
Josh Doan [18] (Tage Thompson, Rasmus Dahlin) Power Play Goal, 3-2 Sabres
Darren Raddysh [17] (Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel) 6-on-5, 3-3
Jake Guentzel [25] (Nikita Kucherov, J.J. Moser) 3-on-3, 4-3 Lightning