Sunrise, Florida (WGR Sports Radio 550) - A chippy contest went way of the opposition on Saturday night, as the Buffalo Sabres were defeated by the Florida Panthers, 3-2, in a shootout inside Amerant Bank Arena.
The Sabres opened the scoring mighty deep into the opening period of play. On a powerplay, Rasmus Dahlin and Jason Zucker played a game of "give-and-go", which ended with a Dahlin slam-dunk for his 17th goal of the season.
Five-minutes into the middle stanza, Florida tied the score. Defenseman Seth Jones' point shot missed wide of the net, but a fortuitous bounce off the back wall found Carter Verhaeghe. The forward deposited the puck into the back of the net with a backhand to make it 1-1 in Sunrise.
Towards the back half of the second, Florida took its first lead of the game. Forward Jesse Puljujarvi deflected a point shot in behind Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to make it 2-1 Panthers.
Before period's end, some controversy arose in Sunrise. Jiri Kulich was hammered in the neutral zone by Panthers defenseman Jonah Gadjovich. It appeared as though Gadjovich initiated contact before Kulich touched the loose puck, and was properly called a major penalty on the ice. After review, though, the call was overturned for and no penalization occurred.
The game remained a 2-1 score until JJ Peterka and the Sabres evened things up on a third-period powerplay. In the waning seconds of the 5-on-3 man advantage, the German winger nipped his 26th goal of the campaign from a tight angle.
The score stayed tied through the remainder of regulation, as the two sides prepared for overtime in Florida.
It was a high-danger, back-and-forth extra period, but neither offense could solve the other netminder for those five-minutes. On came a shootout to decide things on Saturday.
Only one goal was scored in the shootout, and it was by the first skater for the Panthers. Forward Anton Lundell helped Florida defeat the Sabres, as Jack Quinn, JJ Peterka and Alex Tuch were denied by goalie Vitek Vanecek in succession.
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SCORING RECAP
First Period:
BUF: 19:41 - Rasmus Dahlin (17) PPG (Jason Zucker, JJ Peterka)
FLA: NONE
Second Period:
BUF: NONE
FLA: 5:00 - Carter Verhaeghe (19) (Seth Jones, Evan Rodrigues); 14:47 - Jesse Puljujarvi (4) (Uvis Balinskis, Carter Verhaeghe)
Third Period:
BUF: 12:18 - JJ Peterka (26) PPG (Rasmus Dahlin, Alex Tuch)
FLA: NONE
Overtime:
BUF: NONE
FLA: NONE
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Three Stars of the Game:
1. Anton Lundell - FLA
2. Carter Verhaeghe - FLA
3. JJ Peterka - BUF
What's Next:
The weekend back-to-back culminates tomorrow evening, April 13. The blue and gold finish the tour of Florida at Amalie Arena, visiting the Tampa Bay Lightning. Puck drop is again set for 6 p.m. EST with Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray on the call.