The Sabres turned up the juice in a fiery 5-3 win over Tampa Bay
BUFFALO — Until very recently, games between the Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning played out like a tussle between two brothers, one a bit older than the other. The older brother always had the edge and would occasionally just toy with their kid brother to mess with them thinking they had a chance to beat him before ultimately crushing their dream.
The thing is about those battles is when the kid brother grows up or the older brother slows down, things start to change, and the kid brother starts to pull out some wins and drive the older brother bonkers by doing it.
The Sabres’ past two games against Tampa Bay show that the still kid brother aged Sabres are turning things around on the big brother Bolts and they’ve found ways to be really annoying about it.
Last week in Tampa, the Sabres got out to leads of 3-1, 4-2, and 5-3 trying to keep the Lightning at bay (sorry, not sorry). But the Lightning kept coming back and eventually forced overtime and had a power play going into the extra period to have the advantage against Buffalo. Turns out it was Ilya Lyubushkin’s time to shine because his shorthanded goal in overtime gave Buffalo a hard-fought road win in a building that’s more like a den of nightmares for the Sabres.
That game set the table for fireworks on Saturday afternoon. It was in that game Rasmus Dahlin threw on his troll mask and got under the skin of Tampa Bay players, particularly Anthony Cirelli. The hits got harder and meaner, and every check was finished and then some the rest of the game. That it ended in shocking fashion the way it did in OT didn’t stop the snarl on Saturday.
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As questionable as some of the calls in their previous matchup in Florida were, officiating again took front and center in a game between two highly skilled teams. I’m not going to go in and break down the missed calls and the seemingly fictitious ones, but both teams had legitimate gripes to air out in the end.
A hooking call to Dahlin led to Tampa Bay’s opening power play goal from Brayden Point, who had an adventurous afternoon in the end. The game evened out when Nick Paul was called for holding and Tage Thompson made it count with his 42nd goal of the season. The first 20 minutes were well played and hard fought, exactly the kind of game you expect from these teams.
It was the second period where things unraveled for Tampa Bay.
The Bolts allowed three straight goals to Buffalo. Vinnie Hinostroza teed up a shot in the slot to beat Brian Elliott to make it 2-1. Tyson Jost made it 3-1 when he was able to hop on a loose puck in front of the net unscathed to slip it past the goalie. Jack Quinn made it 4-1 with a goal in the final minute in which he had a lot of room to skate the puck in and pick a spot to shoot it. Too easy.
Lightning captain Steven Stamkos was on ice for all three goals against and took an unfortunate spotlight on the latter two goals. Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov allowed Jost to slip in front, waving their sticks at him in an effort to disrupt the play. (They did not disrupt the play).
On Quinn’s goal, Stamkos took himself out of the play checking a Sabres player behind the Buffalo net which allowed the Sabres to break down the ice 4-on-4. Point glided into the zone and casually shadowed the defenseman at the blue line while watching Quinn attack the net.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper benched Stamkos, Kucherov, and Point for the entire third period. Message sent and received because the Lightning made it interesting after Jeff Skinner opened the third with a power play goal that made it 5-1. Tampa got a pair of goals from Alex Killorn to cut it to 5-3 but that’s where it ended, and the Sabres withstood an onslaught in the final two to three minutes.
The Lightning have been the class of the NHL for the past three seasons going to the Stanley Cup Final each year and winning it twice. Benching superstars isn’t common, but Jon Cooper is one of the best coaches in the league, so I tend to think he knows what he’s doing.
“We have a set of standards here that everybody adheres to, and it’s not pick and choose, it’s everybody,” Cooper said. “It’s how it was for today and, like I said, those guys are an extremely important part of our team but for 20 minutes tonight, I thought the other guys could get it done and they almost did.”
That it was the Sabres who brought this out of the Lightning says something about their spirit and their talent. The game had a lot of bite to it. There was a big dust-up in the second period when Dahlin went to hip check Cirelli and ended up hitting him knee-on-knee as both players moved to evade.
That turned into a fracas in which the Lightning dog piled on Dahlin and Skinner arrived on scene to pull guys off the defenseman. Both Dahlin and Cirelli chalked off the play as just being part of hockey. I’m sure the off-the-record opinions of it are a fair bit spicier, but we’re not usually privileged to those despite our prying.
What was impressive about the Sabres effort is that once they got ahead at 2-1, the game felt like it was in their hands the rest of the way, and certainly after it was 4-1 at the end of the second period. Yes, the game got to 5-1 and the lead began to slip, but the harried play that’s occurred in previous affairs in which opponents try to roar back from a deficit. It was a controlled, concerted effort to hold it down and Eric Comrie held the door shut. Just how you’d draw it up.
Wins like this always feel good, particularly against a team in which every game is played with some variety of meanness. It’s the way competition works. Both teams want to win it and they’ll be damned if you try to stop them. Players love these types of games because it gets the adrenaline pumping and it keeps them fully engaged. The Sabres getting this kind of game after the mess that occurred against Boston on Thursday was a necessary change of pace and even more proof that a single bad loss isn’t the end of the world that destroys playoff dreams.
It’s easy for me to say, especially after a win, but it goes back to the way the players handle these things. Once a bad game is over, the ill feelings about it are gone the next day. If only we could all be like that in life, right? Still, as this group continues to grow together these types of progression are positives for this season and the ones to come.