Tonight the Sabres took just their second loss in their last 15 games, their first at home since November, losing 4-3 at home in a grind of a game against the Panthers.
Sam Reinhart opened up the scoring against his old team, 2:35 into the game, tipping in a long range shot from the blue line through a ton of traffic to put Florida up 1-0. Jacob Bryson tied it up with 9:41 left to go in the first on a beautiful shot from the point, that went through a ton of traffic and bar down. Great goal. With 4:49 left in the first, AJ Greer gave the Panthers the lead back, with a simple shot short side that beat Ellis off a drop pass from Sam Bennett. Not a great goal for Ellis to give up. Even though the Panthers have the lead after a period, I thought the Sabres played pretty well in a relatively even, physical game.
Pretty quickly after a fight that amounted to nothing, Zach Benson tied it up for the Sabres, capitalizing on some great work by Tage Thompson to push the puck past the goal line from right in front. Fantastic work by Tage. Fun second period.
The Panthers took the lead again with 8:53 left, Ellis couldn’t freeze the puck in the crease, let it slip a bit and Anton Lundell put it in the goal to put Florida up 3-2. Tage saved an empty netter with less than two minutes left which led to a nice chance for the Sabres, but on the next turnover, the Panthers capitalized on the empty net that time with AJ Greer getting his second of the game for an insurance goal, making it 4-2 Florida. The Sabres gave themselves a chance with a Tuch goal in front with 13.6 seconds left, batting the puck out of the air and having it fall in and slip past Bob to make it 4-3. Lundell tied up the face-off too long there and the Sabres just ran out of time to enter the zone.
FINAL: Sabres 3, Panthers 4
Even in the loss, I thought Buffalo played pretty well tonight. This was a grind of a game. Even without all their guys in the lineup, this is still the back to back Cup Champs and the three time Eastern Conference Champs who are in complete desperation to stay in the mix for the playoffs.
First loss at home since November. Gotta bounce back against Philly on Wednesday night.
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A Town's Zone 