Lightning strikes twice against the Sabres

The Lightning defeated the Buffalo Sabres 4-3 in a thriller tonight in Tampa Bay. The Lightning now improve to 36-14-4 on the season with 76 points keeping them in first place of the Atlantic Division.

The Lightning got the party started with Nikita Kucherov adding his 29th of the season assisted by Jake Guentzel with 9:36 remaining in the 1st period. The Sabres were fairly quick to respond with a goal from Mattias Samuelsson with 3:07 remaining in the 1st period of the game. Samuelsson adds his 10th goal of the season unassisted due to a brilliant display of skill in the Lightning zone. The Lightning and Sabres would head into 2nd period of this game tied 1-1.

The Sabres would take the lead off another goal from Mattias Samuelsson with 15:52 remaining in regulation of this game. Samuelsson is having himself a quietly very good season for the Sabres now with 11 goals and 23 assists giving him a career best 34 points and counting . Samuelssons goal started in their own zone by Jack Quinn starting a rush in transition to Ryan McLeod who created the play in the Lightning zone passing it over to Samuelsson who was able to get one passed Vasilevskiy.

The Lightning would respond on the power play with Oliver Bjorkstrand grabbing his 9th of the season assisted by Darren Raddysh and Nikita Kucherov. Bjorkstrand seems to now be clicking with goals in back to back games for the Lightning. This also marks another multi point game for both Darren Raddysh and Nikita Kucherov. Darren Raddysh has really turned himself into a really solid player for this Lightning team this season and continues to get better and better every night.

The Sabres would take the lead again with 5:07 remaining in the game. Josh Doan was able to get one past Vasilevskiy on the power play giving him 18 goals on the season assisted by Tage Thompson