Jason Zucker scored the go-ahead, power-play goal with 14:29 left in the third period, leading the visiting Buffalo Sabres to a 5-3 win over the reeling Florida Panthers on Monday night in Sunrise.
It was the fourth straight loss for the two-time reigning Stanley Cup champion Panthers, who blew an early 2-0 lead.
The Sabres also got goals from Tage Thompson, Peyton Krebs, Zach Benson and Josh Doan. Rasmus Dahlin added two assists. Alex Lyon made 38 stops for the win. He is 11-1-0 in his past 12 starts.
The Panthers got goals from rookie Sandis Vilmanis, Evan Rodrigues and Uvis Balinskis.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 15 saves for the Panthers, who got two assists from former Sabres standout Sam Reinhart.
Florida lost forward Sam Bennett to an unspecified injury in the first period. Bennett joins Florida’s lengthy injured list that includes defensemen Seth Jones and Dmitry Kulikov and forwards Aleksander Barkov, Brad Marchand and Anton Lundell.
Florida needed just 37 seconds to open the scoring. Florida’s Niko Mikkola started the sequence with a shot that went off the back of teammate A.J. Greer. Vilmanis pounced on the loose puck and scored over Lyon’s left shoulder.
The Panthers caught a break to make it 2-0 as Rodriguez’s attempted pass to Eetu Luostarinen went in off the right skate of Buffalo’s Zucker.
Buffalo got on the board with 4:57 left in the period as Thompson faked a pass, spun and scored from the point.
Buffalo tied the score with 1:34 left in the first as Tuch won a puck battle with Gustav Forsling in the neutral zone. Tuch then fed Dahlin, who connected with Krebs for the tap-in goal.
The Sabres took a 3-2 lead just eight seconds after killing off a Ryan McLeod delay-of-game penalty. When McLeod jumped out of the box, he gathered a long pass from Owen Power at the right circle. Bobrovsky left his crease to try to break up the play, but McLeon passed back to Benson, who scored between the legs of defenseman Forsling.
However, Florida tied the score 3-3 with 61 seconds left in the second period on Balinskis’ one-timer, power-play goal.
Buffalo took a 4-3 lead on Zucker’s goal off a pass from Doan.
Doan then put the game away on his goal with 2:09 left.
–Field Level Media
