{"id":544972,"date":"2026-04-07T05:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/544972\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T05:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:23:15","slug":"sabres-defeat-lightning-move-back-into-tie-in-points-for-1st-in-atlantic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/544972\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres defeat Lightning, move back into tie in points for 1st in Atlantic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Tuch<\/a> and Josh Norris<\/a> scored, and Bowen Byram<\/a> had two assists for the Sabres (47-23-8), who had lost two straight (outscored 10-3). Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a> made 23 saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was good for us. We weren\u2019t very happy with our (past two games),\u201d Zucker said. \u201cIt was good to get back on it, and obviously to do it in front of our home crowd was a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nikita Kucherov<\/a> scored his 400th NHL goal, Jake Guentzel<\/a> had a goal and an assist, and Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> made 25 saves for the Lightning (48-23-6), who had won two in a row and four of five.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly didn\u2019t love our game tonight,\u201d Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. \u201cIt was 2-2 and we were in a pretty good spot and just give up a goal that, again, breakdowns in our defensive zone that shouldn\u2019t happen. We had to chase it in the third. We had a good looks, we did, but we didn\u2019t finish them. It was too little too late. A little bit frustrating, just the way the game went.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tuch gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 5:42 of the first period. Fresh out of the penalty box, Tuch received a cross-ice pass from Byram in the neutral zone and skated to the high slot before scoring with a wrist shot that beat Vasilevskiy blocker side inside the left post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a little inconsistent for myself,\u201d said Tuch, who has 30 goals this season. \u201cI had a little minor injury about a month ago that — it\u2019s a bad excuse — but I don\u2019t think I was getting back to my game as much as I could have, and I thought tonight was a solid game. I just got to keep skating, that\u2019s a big component of my game. If I can continue to do that, I can be a lot more effective than I have been of late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kucherov tied it 1-1 on a power play at 11:45, burying a one-timer from the right circle off a cross-ice feed from Guentzel.<\/p>\n

He is the second player in Lightning history to score 400 goals, joining Steven Stamkos<\/a> (555).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Tuch and Josh Norris scored, and Bowen Byram had two assists for the Sabres (47-23-8), who had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,189,4,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-544972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-lightning","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","13":"tag-tampabay","14":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116361757406548250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}