Tampa, Florida (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres went out with a whimper in the team's final road game of 2024-25. Spurned by four-goals against in the second period, the blue and gold lost 7-4 at Amalie Arena to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Tampa Bay opened the scoring with 3:25 to play in the opening period; it was forward Jake Guentzel who netted his 39th goal of the season.
Heading into the final minute, it looked like the Lightning were going to take that 1-0 lead into the first intermission. The Sabres had other ideas, though.
In quick succession (just 15-seconds apart), Jiri Kulich and Connor Clifton flipped the script in Tampa Bay to suddenly vault the blue and gold into the lead after 20-minutes.
For Clifton, it was his long-anticipated first goal of the campaign.
Unfortunately by the end of the following period, the story was very different. A forgettable, messy frame for the blue and gold saw the team allow four goals to Tampa Bay, and what was once a 2-1 Buffalo lead suddenly was a 5-2 deficit after 40-minutes of play.
Less than three-minutes into the final frame, Tampa Bay extended its unanswered-goal streak to five. A ghastly pass was intercepted by Kucherov in front of James Reimer, and the winger sent home his second goal of the game.
Exactly six-minutes after Kucherov's tally, the blue and gold showed a pulse. Alex Tuch deflected home a powerplay tally, his 35th goal of 2024-25, to make it 6-3 Lightning.
Tampa Bay wasn't done, though. The team made sure the extra point was good later in the period when Kucherov set up Guentzel on a man advantage for Guentzel's 40th goal of the season.
Rasmus Dahlin and Sam Lafferty teamed up for a nice goal before the game was over, however. Dahlin hammered the puck from his own end off the back wall, and Lafferty beat the defense to the prize for Buffalo's fourth goal of the evening.
-------------------------
SCORING RECAP
First Period:
BUF: 19:37 - Jiri Kulich (15) (Tage Thompson); 19:52 - Connor Clifton (1) (Peyton Krebs, Jack Quinn)
TBL: 16:35 - Jake Guentzel (39) (Anthony Cirelli)
Second Period:
BUF: NONE
TBL: 3:02 - Ryan McDonagh (4) (Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli); 6:34 - Nikita Kucherov (35) (Victor Hedman, Yanni Gourde); 14:20 - Conor Geekie (7) (Gage Goncalves, Nick Paul); 16:45 - Emil Lilleberg (1) (Mitchell Chaffee, Gage Goncalves)
Third Period:
BUF: 8:39 - Alex Tuch (35) PPG (Rasmus Dahlin, JJ Peterka); 18:23 - Sam Lafferty (4) (Rasmus Dahlin)
TBL: 2:39 - Nikita Kucherov (36) (Unassisted); 13:12 - Jake Guentzel (40) PPG (Nikita Kucherov, Nick Paul)
-------------------------
-------------------------
Three Stars of the Game:
1. Nikita Kucherov - TBL
2. Jake Guentzel - TBL
3. Conor Geekie - TBL
What's Next:
The blue and gold host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night, April 15. Puck drop at KeyBank Center is set for 7 p.m. ET with Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray on the call.