After a win in Game 1 against the Senators on Thursday night, today last season’s Presidents Trophy winners, the Florida Panthers came to town to take on the Sabres. Buffalo ended up losing 4-3 but played a solid game with positives to take away from the loss.
The game started off with a very entertaining first period with a ton of action on both ends of the ice. Alex Tuch had a great finish five hole on Spencer Knight to open the scoring, getting the Sabres a 1-0 lead 10:35 into the game. Colin White ripped a shot top shelf after a defensive breakdown by the Sabres for Florida to tie up the game with 5:57 left in the first period. Late in the period with 1:51 left, Matthew Tkachuk gave the Panthers a 2-1 lead. It didn’t take long for the Sabres to tie it at two though, 42 seconds later Zemgus Girgensons scored on a beautiful play off a drop pass from JJ Peterka.
The Panthers once again broke the tie 2:31 into the second period on a goal by Aaron Ekblad on the power play. After lots of chances that they gave up to Florida throughout the period, the Sabres gave up another goal to give Florida a 4-2 on another Aaron Ekblad goal, again on the power play with 2:15 left in the period. The Sabres continue to fight back though with Rasmus Dahlin making it a one goal game again with just 1:11 remaining in the second. Florida looked like the better team throughout the period, getting many more chances than the Sabres did.
With a scoreless third period, the Sabres went on to take their first loss of the season with a 4-3 final.
FINAL: Sabres 3, Panthers 4
Sabres gave up way too many penalties, giving the highest scoring team in the NHL a season ago six power play opportunities and Florida capitalized on those twice.
There were definitely positives to this loss though. From start to finish, the Sabres hung in and played tough hockey against a very talented Panthers team. I liked what I saw out of the Sabres today
Eric Comrie got his first start as a Sabre in goal today and made some great saves to keep the Sabres in the game with a 33 save performance.
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