Sabres After Dark continued tonight in LA, coming off a terrible 4-2 loss in Anaheim on Tuesday night. We bounced back with a really good 5-3 win against the Kings after a slow start.

The Kings got on the board first just 2:55 into the game as the captain, Anze Kopitar snuck right past the Sabres defense completely unnoticed right in front, got an easy sauce pass from Kempe and put it past Levi to give LA a 1-0 lead. What pathetic defense. JJ Peterka got the Sabres a quick answer back, 5:01 into the first, getting the puck on a turnover, passing it over to Cozens, and then jumping on the rebound to make it a 1-1 game. Only took LA 24 seconds to get their lead back though, with Adrian Kempe ripping a shot bar down over Levi to make it 2-1 Kings after a sick little toe drag. I’m thinking I should’ve hammered the Kings harder tonight, and with 10:16 left in the first, Pierre-Luc Dubois ripped a shot past Levi on the power play, extending the lead to 3-1 LA. Horrible start to the period, especially defensively, but it wasn’t terrible in the second half of the first.

The second period was pretty solid and evenly played, but the Sabres got on the board first, with JJ Peterka getting his second goal of the game to make it 3-2 with 11:38 left in the second, on a nice breakaway with a great pass to get the play going from Jack Quinn. Quinn got a goal of his own a few minutes later with 9:30 left in the second period on a beautiful shot from the middle of the ice on a screen top left corner to tie up the game. Buffalo looked pretty solid in that second period and it was a fun 20 minutes to watch.

The Sabres finally got their first lead of the game in the third period with a beautiful shot by Alex Tuch that beat Talbot 5:49 into the third. It didn’t take too long for Buffalo to extend that lead, with Dylan Cozens ripping a great shot over Talbot’s glove with 11:06 left in regulation.

FINAL: Sabres 5, Kings 3

Solid win for the Sabres in LA to bounce back from Tuesday night’s loss. Not expected. After the slow start and the lousy defense in the first period, they really put it together and played well on both ends of the ice. Really entertaining game. We got better as the game went on. We got outshot 41-38 and outplayed by an expected goal rate of 4.27-2.13, but it didn’t look it. After letting in a few soft goals early, Devon Levi made 38 saves in his first NHL game since January 9th. Decent game all around after the first ten minutes of the game.

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