{"id":545528,"date":"2026-04-07T13:16:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545528\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:16:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:16:15","slug":"sabres-4-2-lightning-apr-6-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545528\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres 4-2 Lightning (Apr 6, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

BUFFALO, N.Y. — \u2014 Jason Zucker<\/a> tipped in Bowen Byram\u2019s shot for the go-ahead goal 7:38 into the second period, and the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> beat the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> 4-2 on Monday night, further tightening the race for the Atlantic Division title.<\/p>\n

Jack Quinn<\/a>, with an assist from goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a>, sealed the win by scoring into an empty net with 1:54 left. Josh Norris<\/a> and Alex Tuch<\/a> 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

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

Jake Guentzel<\/a>, with a goal and assist, and Nikita Kucherov<\/a> 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<\/a> for the points lead with 126.<\/p>\n

Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> made 25 saves in falling to 7-2-1 in his past 10 outings.<\/p>\n

The Sabres never trailed and were greeted by a standing ovation upon returning home since clinching their first playoff berth in 15 seasons on Saturday<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Darren Raddysh<\/a> prevented a Sabres clearing attempt to set up Guentzel’s 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

The game on Monday had its chippy moments between two budding division rivals, but nothing matching the ferocious intensity of the teams\u2019 memorable 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

Up next <\/p>\n

Lightning: At Ottawa on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Sabres: At New York Rangers<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. — \u2014 Jason Zucker tipped in Bowen Byram\u2019s shot for the go-ahead goal 7:38 into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[377],"tags":[5],"class_list":{"0":"post-545528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116363616885941785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545528","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=545528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}