{"id":545199,"date":"2026-04-07T08:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545199\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T08:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:49:18","slug":"sabres-beat-lightning-4-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545199\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres beat Lightning 4-2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/author\/john-wawrow\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">JOHN WAWROW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Jason Zucker tipped in Bowen Byram\u2019s shot for the go-ahead goal 7:38 into the second period, and the Buffalo Sabres beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 on Monday night, further tightening the race for the Atlantic Division title.<\/p>\n<p>Jack Quinn, with an assist from goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, sealed the win by scoring into an empty net with 1:54 left. Josh Norris and Alex Tuch also scored. Buffalo snapped a minor 2-3-2 slump to tie the Lightning atop the division with 102 points, and two ahead of idle Montreal entering the final 10 days of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Luukkonen stopped 23 shots to improve to 10-2-1 in his past 14 appearances and strengthen his hold on the starting job.<\/p>\n<p>Jake Guentzel, with a goal and assist, and Nikita Kucherov also scored, and the Lightning lost in regulation for just the third time in 14 games (9-3-2). Kucherov became the NHL\u2019s eighth Russian-born and second Lightning player to score 400 goals, and also tied Connor McDavid for the points lead with 126.<\/p>\n<p>Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves in falling to 7-2-1 in his past 10 outings.<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres never trailed and were greeted by a standing ovation upon returning home since clinching\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/sabres-clinch-playoff-berth-a59c1bebd997a64644a59ce92ec69309\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">their first playoff berth in 15 seasons on Saturday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Darren Raddysh prevented a Sabres clearing attempt to set up Guentzel\u2019s goal to tie the game at 2 at the 3:56 mark of the second period. Zucker scored less than four minutes later by deflecting in Byram\u2019s shot from the blue line.<\/p>\n<p>The game on Monday had its chippy moments between two budding division rivals, but nothing matching the ferocious intensity of the teams\u2019 memorable\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/sabres-lightning-score-bf1ba2e82ccc412cf9ca7855d63ca4c2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">outing a month ago<\/a>. Buffalo squandered a three-goal lead before rallying from a two-goal deficit to win 8-7 in an outing that featured more than 100 penalty minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Lightning: At Ottawa on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Sabres: At New York Rangers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NHL:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0\u00a0JOHN WAWROW BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Jason Zucker tipped in Bowen Byram\u2019s shot for the go-ahead goal 7:38&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[1251,6725,5,189,4,1247,43,187,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-545199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-associated-press","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-lightning","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tampa","16":"tag-tampa-bay","17":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","18":"tag-tampabay","19":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116362567077111082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545199","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=545199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}