In Tampa, Brian Elliott made 28 saves and the Lightning blanked the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday, 5-0.
“The guys really pushed, and you could tell they were really trying to get that for me at the end,” Elliott said. “It’s awesome to play behind them.”
The Lightning ended a four-game slide with the win.
“If you can get contributions all through the lineup, it helps your cause,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We didn’t have to depend on special teams. We only took one penalty tonight. That’s what we need to do. It was nice to see everyone contributing tonight.”
Ondrej Palat picked up a goal and two points in the win.
“It’s nice to score again, it’s a good feeling,” Palat said. “I was just trying to work hard, play like I’m doing every game and do the little things right. There was going to be someday that I was going to score. I’m glad it was today.”
The Sabres dropped to 26-37-11.
“We were clearly not ourselves tonight,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “You can look at the chances we created; we had some extreme golden opportunities to score, but just couldn’t convert. Their goaltender played well, but I think we made him look even better.”
Corey Perry and Palat scored 17 seconds apart in the first period to give the Bolts an early 2-0 lead.
“Thankfully, I was able to get a couple of practices in with the guys and feel confident enough to get back in the lineup,” Tampa’s Ryan McDonagh said. “We had a great first period. Maybe they had a push there in the second when Elliott made some great saves, but then we had a great third period and that’s a great sign for us.”
The middle frame was not much better for Buffalo, Brandon Hagel and Nikita Kucherov pushed the lead out to 4-0.
“I just thought we sat back,” Buffalo forward Kyle Okposo said. “We just got tight, and I think that’s been an uncharacteristic thing for our team in the last month and a half. When we’ve given up goals, we haven’t really sat back and haven’t changed the way we played. We just were too hesitant in the first period.”
Ross Colton scored early in the third period for the 5-0 final.
Craig Anderson made 23 saves in the loss.
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