Following a fantastic win on Thursday night, blowing out the Habs, the Sabres followed it up tonight with their second win in a row, grinding out a 3-1 win against the Penguins on the road in a game that we didn’t play all that well, but UPL was huge in goal.

The Sabres opened the game with a goal from Alex Tuch, just 2:53 into the first period with a fantastic pass in transition from Connor Clifton all the way across the neutral zone to get in front of the Pen’s defense and score early. The Penguins tied it up before the period ended though with Drew O’Connor scoring off a beautiful drop pass right in front of the net from Sidney Crosby with 4:10 left in the first. Don Granato challenged the goal for offsides, which was successful and wiped it off the board. With a little over a minute left, Jake Guentzel looked to have tied up the game on a tip in off a Crosby shot with chaos in front of the net. With another review from Granato, that got taken off the board as well for goaltender interference. Not a great period as we got outshot 17-8 and although we had the lead, Pittsburgh controlled the puck in their zone and sustained way more chances.

The Sabres played better in the second period in a scoreless 20 minutes and had some more decent scoring chances than in the first. 

With 12:11 left in the third, the Penguins got their first goal (that counted) of the game with Rickard Rakell tipping in a shot from Erik Karlsson on a 5 on 3 power play to tie the game up. The Sabres took the lead back with a Zemgus Girginsons goal that bounced off about four players before he put it in with 4:38 left in regulation. Dahlin got the empty net goal for the second game in a row to make it a 3-1 game with 1:36 left to go. 

FINAL: Sabres 3, Penguins 1

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Big win for the Sabres with UPL leading the way between the pipes. Luukkonen was fantastic in goal, getting a bunch of key stops at critical times, making a career high 44 saves with a .977 save percentage. The Sabres got outshot 45-32, out chanced 23-14, and outplayed by an expected goal rate of 3.87-1.97, yet we still got the win.

I think this is the second time all season we’ve won two games in a row, which is a good start. Let’s go home and try to get the first three game win streak of the season.

Let’s Go Buffalo!

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