Occasionally in hockey, a storyline can be predictable. Then there are times when you can be handed the outline of how things will go and the way it plays out exceeds every expectation.
A week ago, the Buffalo Sabres handed the Tampa Bay Lightning an eye-opening defeat on their ice in a 6-2 decision. The Sabres went up 4-0 after the first period and were up 5-0 in the second before the Lightning scratched a goal back in the romp. There were scuffles, the third period skewed heavier in shenanigans but the upstart Sabres riding a heater that’s lasted since early December put a shot across the bow of a team that’s been there, done that over the past decade.
The late-game message sending by the Lightning indicated that they would be ready when the two teams met again in Buffalo that the temperature would be a bit hotter. It took less than five minutes for that to prove true.
Darren Raddysh was about to head to the box for slashing Alex Tuch’s stick in half when Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli went to lay a hit on Tage Thompson after the whistle. Hagel boarded Thompson and the ensuing chaos brought all the players together by the wall. Raddysh and Rasmus Dahlin came together and fought while tempers rose quickly with everyone else and set the tone for a wild and incredible game.
The Sabres got out to leads of 3-0 and 4-1. They were also down by scores of 6-4 and 7-5. They won 8-7.
Buffalo got four power play goals and a shorthanded goal. Three Sabres players scored two goals (Alex Tuch, Jason Zucker and Josh Doan). Dahlin had a Gordie Howe hat trick. Sam Carrick was an assist away from having one of his own. The two teams combined to score seven goals in the second and third periods. The also combined for 70 penalty minutes in the first period, one that featured three separate fights. The game finished with 102 penalty minutes and five total fights.
“That was fun,” Zucker said. “Obviously, a little bit chaotic. Crazy ebbs and flows of that game. Crazy momentum swings. We had a lot of guys really step up. It was just a hell of a team effort and really fun to be a part of. I’m really proud of the guys.”
It’s simple enough to say it was a game that had everything because it did, but a win like that has layers to it.
The superficial layer is what it did. The win put the Sabres atop the Atlantic Division at least for a day or two. Even though the Lightning have two games in hand, the Sabres have more points for the time being. By virtue of being atop the division, it puts them in the same company as the Metropolitan Division leading Carolina Hurricanes for the best record in the Eastern Conference and they’re two points back of them (although Carolina has a game in hand).
In the overall playoff picture, the Sabres are five points up on Detroit and six up on Montréal (two games in hand) and eight up on Boston. Ottawa, who’s been red hot themselves lately (7-1-2 in their last 10), are 13 points behind (two games in hand). We’ve been saying for a while now that Buffalo is a playoff team and after winning their seventh straight game on Sunday, they’re making it abundantly clear their destiny lies beyond the final day of the regular season for the first time since 2011. Taking two of those seven wins in a row out of the Lightning is what gets everyone around the league’s eyes to open wider.
“As you can see, there was a lot of, I guess, aspects to the game that fans like,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “And, yeah, there was some emotion the game. Two proud teams, teams want to win, and that’s what you get. So, I’d rather have that than a whole bunch of lack of emotion. And fans sitting in their seats, so probably got their money worth tonight.”
To get a game like that between two teams playing like heavyweights in the standings and then play like heavyweights on the ice in the regular season usually takes extraordinary circumstances. The Sabres and Lightning’s last meeting had the Sabres taking it to them but lacked the kind of dirty stuff that sends games to different level. Sunday night’s game added that extra level with the early hit on Thompson and the routine runs at Dahlin that persisted throughout the game.
The Sabres were ready for anything because of the late-game messages in Tampa and the Lightning made sure to help carry it over into Buffalo. The Lightning are veterans in a lot of ways, but especially to the kind of roughhousing that went on Sunday. After all, they’ve been in the middle of a blood feud with the Florida Panthers all season and preseason long. These kinds of games, especially in the postseason, are what they’ve been trained on.
Buffalo? All of this stuff is new. Playoff races, game-long rough stuff, and now a potentially hate-filled rivalry. So much of this season has been built around the anniversary of the 2006 team that stunned everyone on the road to the Eastern Conference Final in a season which they could’ve won the Stanley Cup but didn’t. Part of that road involved a white-hot rivalry with the Ottawa Senators that fans still haven’t let go decades later. Part of the lore that helped build that team was built around the brawling and nastiness that unfolded around Chris Neil and Ray Emery.
If Brandon Hagel and Erik Černák are to be part of this new chapter of Sabres history, Sunday night set it in motion. Hagel, who you may remember was drafted by the Sabres in the sixth round of the 2016 Draft but was never signed, became an instant villain with his hit on Thompson followed by his attempts to goad Dahlin into another fight in the second period by grabbing and punching him numerous times in the head.
“I’m not a referee, but a situation like that, usually a guy gets kicked out,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “He doesn’t get four. He probably should get two for every punch, and it would probably lead to at least 20 minutes, and then get kicked out. But I’m not the referee, so I’ll let them decide that.”
Hagel’s actions resulted in a double-minor for roughing that led to a power play goal for Tuch when he tipped a Thompson shot past Jonas Johansson for a 3-0 lead.
Černák has been part of some of the lowlights of Sabres history. When he hit Dahlin in 2019 during a game in Tampa that knocked the Sabres defenseman out of action with a concussion, then coach Ralph Krueger wanted revenge for the hit when the teams met weeks later in Buffalo. The Sabres called up AHL tough guy Dalton Smith for the game and his assignment was obvious. To make room for him in the lineup, they scratched Evan Rodrigues to do so which led Rodrigues to demand a trade. Smith didn’t fight Černák and instead pushed and shoved with Luke Schenn earning a roughing penalty and played but 1:26 in a game which the Sabres led 4-1 in the second period and lost 6-4.
Oddly enough, the Sabres led Sunday’s game 4-1 after Corey Perry got Tampa on the board following Tuch’s power play goal and then Tuch’s shorthanded tally got it back to a three-goal lead. The Lightning rallied in a way they’ve done for years and scored five straight goals, three in the second and then the first two of the third period to take a 6-4 lead. The bizarre irony of seeing that happen again in Buffalo in a game which the temperature spiked gave off a strong air of “same old Sabres.”
That’s when Sam Carrick, who helped put Saturday’s game away with a pair of faceoff wins in the final 30 seconds of the third period, raced in on a 2-on-1 and ripped a shot under Johansson’s blocker to cut it to 6-5.
“We just knew there was the momentum swings just kept going back and forth, so we knew if we just stayed on our toes, kept trying to skate, keep it simple,” Zucker said. “We were just getting pucks behind them and behind them, and we were able to capitalize on a few.”
While that goal got belief back in the team and the fans back into the game, seeing Hagel score on a yawning net after a big rebound deflated the building all over again. A 7-5 deficit with 10:12 to play in the third seemed like a lot to get over against a team like the Lightning even though the entirety of the game showed that no lead was safe. History is a hell of a thing to shake off and why it’s oddly poetic that it was Dahlin who changed the mood.
Dahlin skated the puck deep into the zone towards the net untouched and a player of his ilk with that skill left alone is a dangerous one. A move, a quick shot to Johansson’s blocker side and suddenly it’s 7-6 with just under nine minutes to play and the crowd believes again that this game can be had.
“You see the fourth line getting the fifth goal to bring us back into the game,” Doan said. “When your team has that, you have confidence to come back no matter what the score is. You see our waves come throughout the game. We had it early and, obviously, they had a couple bounces their way and we lose it, but you see those waves continuing to come late into the hockey game. I think we had eight minutes left and we get one and the fans are going crazy as they were, it’s pretty easy to have a second wind.”
We’ve witnessed many games in the past in what turned out to be inconsequential seasons which the crowd getting into the game seemed to have an effect on how it turned out. Those moments made it seem debatable whether that was the case or not, but the way Sunday’s crowd rallied, it became a moment where they were collectively the extra man.
During a stoppage in play following Dahlin’s goal the roar of the fans surged and built in a way that building hasn’t seen in over a decade. It was the kind crowd that hungers for the postseason and knows it’s coming and knows very well how much of a factor they can be, and it proved to be true when Zucker took off on a breakaway and tied the game at seven with 5:31 to go.
It was 34 seconds later when Noah Östlund got an angle to the net for a scoring chance but was slashed on the way by Zemgus Girgensons to put Buffalo back on the power play. That it was a former Sabres star during the leanest of years who allowed for a memorable moment to unfold is twisted in its own way. Sure, there are more than enough former Sabres all over the league, but Girgensons was the last guy left when it all fell apart years ago when all the guys who were supposed to lead Buffalo to glory scattered for the horizon. And yet, Sunday’s insane game turns for the final time after Girgensons helped bring it about.
Dahlin’s slap shot from the point rocketed off the post, glanced off of Zucker’s stick to Doan who batted it past Johansson just 1:44 after Zucker tied the game for an 8-7 lead.
“We shuffled a couple lines around, but we knew if we kept playing that the opportunities were there,” Ruff said. “We were getting great opportunities, and it just felt those opportunities weren’t going to go away if we kept playing the same way, and we did. I thought unbelievable by Tuch on his shorthanded goal, unbelievable skate by Zucker on his goal. Ostlund, his skate to draw the penalty on the last power-play goal. I just thought our speed was evident and we were creating a lot, and I just felt we were going to get the opportunities. Whether we finished them or not, I knew we were going to get opportunities.”
Predicting that Sunday’s game was going to be one that would help write a key chapter of the story of this Sabres team’s season was easy enough to do. Both teams are good and both teams play with a lot of fire. Talent and passion create moments, but when the game got away from Buffalo in the second and third period, the story shaped itself as one where the team that’s been there before taught a lesson to the new guys about how to pace yourself when trying to get a pound of flesh.
The Sabres burned so hot in piling up goals and chances to go with the punches and hits that seeing them give up a three-goal lead twice and wind up going down by two twice had all the makings of becoming an advanced level class in session they were about to fail.
The thing about the Sabres is that when it comes to scoring their way back into games, they’ve done that all year. Once the fisticuffs and nastiness took a backseat and the game became more about hockey, that’s what Buffalo has figured out. Dealing with emotions running all over the place takes time and poise to deal with in the moment, but hockey solves itself. You either do it or you don’t.
“It’s just an awesome statement,” Ruff said. “You talk about, we’re playing for a playoff spot. That’s what we’re playing for. Both teams are still playing for a playoff spot. That’s really what it was all about. We know how tight this conference is, we know how tight the division is. It’s one game at a time but knowing that we’re looking for a playoff spot.”
And to think, we might get to do this all over again on April 6 when the Lightning return to Buffalo for their final regular season meeting. Maybe it’ll be the warmup for a postseason showdown.