New Goaltending Standard in Buffalo
Sabres 5 – Panthers 3 Buffalo (G) Lyon who recently set a franchise consecutive win streak by a Sabres goaltender has now raised the franchise’s overall goaltending record by winning his eighth consecutive road game by stopping 38 out of Florida’s 41 SOG earning a .927% save percentage in the win last night.
Before either team worked up a sweat, Florida scored 37 seconds into the first period with a nice snapper that deflected off of Sabres (G) Lyon into the net, and to make matters worse, the Panthers scored again five and a half minutes later for the 2-0 score just six minutes into the game.
Fortunately, Sabres (C) Thompson, (C) Krebs, and (D) Dahlin combined for two goals to tie the game 2-2 before the first period ended, and then in the second period Florida outshot Buffalo 19 to 6, but Sabres (G) Lyon stood tall as each team scored once and the second period ended tied three apiece.
In the third period Florida again outshot Buffalo by a wide margin, 14 to 6, but it was the Sabres who scored on the power play five and a half minutes into the third period for the 4-3 lead in what can only be explained as Florida (G) Bobrovsky losing his mind as the Panthers netminder skated into to the faceoff circle to his left to (unsuccessfully) prevent Sabres (C) McLeod from getting the puck, which was awesome for Buffalo resulting in Sabres (LW) Benson receiving a pass and scoring.
With seven minutes remaining in the game and the Sabres halfway through killing off a penalty, incredibly Buffalo gets whistled again for another infraction giving the Panthers the 5 on 3 advantage for 67 seconds, which the Sabres not only successfully squashed but added another tally four minutes after that PK to take the 5-3 lead and the road victory.
The Buffalo Sabres remain in Florida to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight 7:30 pm EST in the second game of their back-to-back road games within the Sunshine State.
Buffalo Winter 