Tage Thompson scored his 40th goal and James Reimer made 22 saves and stopped both shootout attempts to lead the host Buffalo Sabres to their third straight win, 3-2, over the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
Jason Zucker also scored for Buffalo (33-36-6, 72 points), which extended its home win streak to five games. Jack Quinn and Alex Tuch each scored in the shootout to give the Sabres their sixth win in the last seven games.
Brayden Point and Gage Goncalves scored for Tampa Bay (44-26-6, 94 points), which increased its second-place lead in the Atlantic Division to two points over the Florida Panthers. Ex-Sabre Jonas Johansson made 36 saves for the Lightning, who clinched a playoff spot for the eighth consecutive season earlier Saturday when the New York Rangers lost 4-0 to the New Jersey Devils.
Tampa Bay, which didn’t have a shot on goal in the first 14:10 and finished with just two in the first period, took a 1-0 lead at the 1:35 mark of the second on Point’s team-leading 39th goal. Point scooped up a loose puck in the left circle and then fired a wrist shot five-hole.
Buffalo tied it a little more than three minutes later when Zach Benson stole the puck in the left corner and fed Thompson alone in the high slot. Thompson then ripped a wrist shot past Johansson’s blocker side and inside the right post to hit the 40-goal mark for the second time in his career. Thompson scored 47 goals in the 2022-23 season.
The Lightning regained the lead midway through the period when Goncalves fired a wrist shot from the edge of the right circle under Reimer’s right arm.
Zucker tied it at 2 early in the third period with a power-play goal, sliding in a rebound of a Rasmus Dahlin point shot inside the right post.
–Field Level Media
