The Buffalo Sabres keep taking the lead and keep giving it back — but on Monday afternoon at KeyBank Center, they finally finished the job. Noah Östlund’s power-play wrist shot with 12:45 remaining broke a 3-3 tie for good, and Tage Thompson’s late strike sealed a 5-3 win over the Florida Panthers, Buffalo’s first multi-goal lead of the night and its first victory in three games.
The win came with a scare. Captain Rasmus Dahlin scored on a power-play slap shot at 15:55 of the first to give Buffalo a 2-1 lead, then left early in the second period with an upper-body injury and did not return. He is considered day to day and won’t play Tuesday in Montreal — the only sour note on an afternoon when Buffalo also had to survive a goaltending change.
Colten Ellis started in net but was pulled after a Florida power-play goal leaked through his pads, finishing with two goals allowed on nine shots. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen entered at 6:25 of the second and steadied the ship, stopping 13 of 14 shots for the win. At the other end, Jacob Markstrom exited at the first intermission with two goals on 11 shots, and Akira Schmid made 18 saves in relief.
Buffalo led 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 before Florida erased each advantage. Josh Doan opened the scoring at 5:58 of the first, his first goal of the season on a give-and-go with Peyton Krebs. Anton Lundell answered at 11:00, then Dahlin’s power-play strike restored the lead. Sam Reinhart’s power-play poke at 6:26 of the second — the goal that ended Ellis’s afternoon — tied it again, and Ryan McLeod’s first of the season at 11:25 (with Olen Zellweger’s first Sabres point as the primary assist) lasted barely two minutes before Reinhart’s second power-play goal at 13:41.
Östlund’s winner, the Sabres’ second power-play goal on five chances, finally held. The Buffalo man advantage has now generated three goals in two games after an 0-for-13 start to the season. Thompson’s insurance marker — his goal and assist giving him two points on the day — arrived with 6:40 remaining to finally put the game out of reach. Krebs, Jack Quinn and Owen Power each finished with two assists; Seth Jones had two helpers for Florida.
The win moves Buffalo to 3-3-0 and stops a two-game slide with a needed Atlantic Division two points — their first division contest of the season. “In the six games so far, that was probably our best hockey game,” coach Lindy Ruff said, and Luukkonen agreed: “You need those kinds of wins, especially in the Atlantic Division games.” Now the Sabres head to Montreal on Tuesday without their captain and a goalie tandem still sorting itself out — but for the first time all season, they won ugly, won pretty, and won them both in the same afternoon.