In Sunrise Friday night, the Florida Panthers’ Evgenii Dadonov scored with less than seven minutes left in regulation to tie their game with the Buffalo Sabres at 2-2.
Aleksander Barkovstruck at 2:26 of the extra session to give Florida a 3-2 win over Buffalo.
“One of the best in the League,” Jonathan Huberdeau said of Barkov. “I think he’s such a good player. But we’ll see what happens. It’s for the team first, but of course it’s always fun to play with a guy like that.”
Aleksander Barkov had OT winner for Panthers – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
James Reimer made 22 saves in the win as the Panthers improved to 10-10-4.
“It feels awesome, and of course what we’ve been through, especially in the homestand, we’ve been losing games in the last minute and it’s tough like that,” Barkov said. “But this game was huge for us.”
Sam Reinhart had a goal and an assist, and Jeff Skinner scored for the Sabres.
Buffalo dropped its second straight game after a 10-game winning streak and fell to 17-7-3.
“I thought we sat back, maybe a little too much, and let them take it to us with speed,” Jack Eichel said. “I thought our willingness to skate with them and make plays was a little down. Our feet weren’t moving as much as we should have. Obviously, it was a back to back and an emotional game last night. It’s a tough one.”
Jared McCann also scored for Florida.
“You’ve got to give their goalie credit,” McCann said. “He played well. I feel like we were relentless and just kept pressure on them at all times.”
[WATCH: All Sabres vs. Panthers highlights]
Linus Ullmark made 40 saves in the loss.
“I thought Linus played great for us,” Skinner said. “It seemed we had a tough time getting into their end and sustaining the forecheck. We turned over a couple of pucks too many, and if you give that group over there too many chances, they’re [going to] hurt you.”
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