Coming off a big win against the Senators on Tuesday night, the Sabres followed it up with an entertaining, yet disappointing 5-4 loss in New Jersey tonight to the Devils as the defense struggled tonight.

The Sabres got on the board first, scoring 6:11 into the game as JJ Peterka came streaking up the ice in transition and beat Vanecek to give the Sabres a 1-0 lead. The Devils answered back and tied up the game just 1:30 later with Alexander Holtz getting a tip in on a Luke Hughes long range shot. With 4:18 left in the first, Tage Thompson got the Sabres the lead back as he dangled below the goal line past Vanecek to make it a 2-1 game. Jesper Bratt answered back with a shorty to tie the game up at 2-2, stealing the puck away and flying after the turnover, finishing off by putting the puck in the five hole right past Comrie. Fun first period with four goals in a pretty evenly matched first 20 minutes. Good offensive chances for Buffalo but both goals they gave up were off scoring chances on lousy turnovers.

Eric Comrie got injured in the second period and had to come out of the game, which could be bad news for us considering that Devon Levi’s also out injured. Eric Haula scored New Jersey’s second shorthanded goal to give the Devils their first lead of the game, stealing away the puck, going up the ice on a breakaway and beating Ukko Pekka Luukkonen, giving Jersey a 3-2 lead with 6:13 left in the second period. Buffalo answered back as Rasmus Dahlin ripped a rocket of a shot on a one timer from the point to tie it up 2-2 with 2:28 remaining in the second.

Tyler Toffoli scored on the power play just 2:09 into the third period tipping in Jack Hughes’ shot. With 7:25 remaining in regulation, Dylan Cozens scored a beautiful goal to tie the game up at 4 each placing the puck perfectly off Vanecek’s left shoulder. That was just Buffalo’s second shot of the period, so it was huge to tie it up there with the offense not playing great. Eric Haula got the Devils their one goal lead with 5:43 left in regulation, tipping in a shot from the blue line by Kevin Bahl. Good effort by the Sabres to try to tie the game up late, but we come up short and lose 5-4.

FINAL: Sabres 4, Devils 5

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Fun game to watch but I wasn’t all that impressed by tonight’s game, especially defensively. We got outshot 40-27 but were just outplayed by an expected goal rate of 3.39-3.1, as the Devils had 25 scoring chances to our 20. I thought the bad turnovers and the 

Back in action on Sunday afternoon against the Avs.

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