BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The Sabres battled back against their top competition in the Atlantic Division but couldn’t continue their winning ways in a 5-2 loss to the Florida Panthers on Monday night at KeyBank Center.
Jason Zucker scored another goal on the power play and captain Rasmus Dahlin tied it up with his first goal of the season less than two minutes later. But Carter Verhaeghe’s goal late in the second put the reigning Stanley Cup champions ahead for good in snapping Buffalo’s three-game win streak.
“We had a chance to beat a good team. It was right there,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “We just weren’t good enough to get it done.”
Sliding back
Along with the win streak, Buffalo’s run of scoring at least four goals in six consecutive games, the team’s longest in more than 30 years, came to a halt.
Tage Thompson extended his point streak to seven games with an assist on Zucker’s deflection goal, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 25 shots for the Sabres, who dropped below .500 with a 4-5-1 record. After playing 10 games, the Sabres rank 12th in the Eastern Conference with nine points in the standings. A win Monday night would have put them in seventh.
Jesper Boqvist and former Sabres forward Sam Reinhart scored 55 seconds apart to give Florida (7-3-1) a 2-0 lead midway through the first period, and captain Aleksander Barkov added a goal late in his return after missing eight games due to injury. Sergei Bobrovsky made 25 saves as the Panthers avenged a loss here two weeks ago when Bobrovsky, Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk were out of the lineup.
‘Stupid play’
Buffalo’s attempt to come back in the third period was thwarted when Dahlin took a slashing penalty, leading to Sam Bennett’s goal on the power play with 5:25 remaining.
“Got to blame myself on that one,” said Dahlin, who scored his first goal this season in the second period. “They were smarter than we were. Tough penalty at the end there. We had a chance to come back, but, yeah, stupid play.”
Dahlin also erred on on an earlier penalty kill, following Barkov behind the net and leaving Reinhart open in front to score Florida’s second goal.
“We make those mistakes on the first kill, it was just a careless gamble that hurt us dearly,” Ruff said.
Up next
Buffalo concludes its four-game homestand Friday night against the New York Islanders. It will be Hockey Fights Cancer night at KeyBank Center, in partnership with Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
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Jonah Bronstein joined the WIVB squad in 2022 as a digital sports reporter. The Buffalonian has covered the Bills, Sabres, Bandits, Bisons, colleges, high schools and other notable sporting events in Western New York since 2005, for publications including The Associated Press, The Buffalo News, and Niagara Gazette. Read more of his work here.