In Tampa, Anthony Cirelli and Ross Colton (power play) scored in the third period tor ally the Lightning from a 5-3 deficit to a 5-5 tie on Thursday night to force extra time with the Buffalo Sabres. 
In the extra session, Ilya Lyubushkin hit for a shorthanded strike for a hat trick in a 6-5 win to the Sabres.
“I just saw a straight line and wanted to go as fast as possible,” Lyubushkin said. “I saw I had a little bit of time, not a lot, and I just tried to shoot.
“It feels nice for my team, that’s more important than me. We’re trying to push for the playoffs right now.”
Tage Thompson scored the first two goals of the second period and added a third for a hat trick in the win.
Eric Comrie made 36 saves in the Buffalo win.
The Sabres improved to 29-23-4 off their fourth straight win.
“This is a good game to bring with us because we know we can play against the best and compete night in and night out,” the Sabres Rasmus Dahlin said. “It was a great win.”
Tampa’s Steven Stamkos, and Buffalo’s Zemgus Girgensons exchanged goal in the first period for a 1-1 tie headed to the middle frame.
“If we want to play good hockey down the stretch, we’ve got to figure it out now,” Tampa Bay forward Pat Maroon said. “We got it back and got a point, but these teams are crawling for a playoff spot. We’re going to get a hot Detroit team (on Saturday) and a Pittsburgh team that’s desperate to win hockey games (on Sunday). It’s playoff hockey down the stretch. We can’t give up four breakaways.”
Thompson pushed the Sabres into a 3-1 advantage with his first tow goals.
“For me, when I’m skating up the ice I’m just trying to get open and find a spot,” Thompson said. “It was one of those nights where everything was coming to me.”
Tampa dropped to 36-17-4, they are 1-1-2 in their last four.
“There were a lot of mistakes tonight, and they all wound up in the back of the net,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “I’m not disappointed with the effort. It’s the mentality. I give the guys credit for coming back. It takes effort to come back like that.”
Victor Hedman scored 16 seconds after Thompson hit for his second, to make the score, 3-2, but Buffalo’s Jack Quinn scored to push the lead back to two, 4-2.
“We had to work for it,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “We had to stay very dialed in and focused, and it was good to rise above that challenge. [Comrie] was really good. He didn’t feel the pressure and stayed with it.”
Brayden Point scored at 5:48 of the third to get the Lighting back to within one at 4-3.
“I thought we pushed well in the third,” Cirelli said. “We battled hard and got ourselves back in the game. I thought we showed some pretty good fight to come back and tie it up, but in the end, it wasn’t good enough.”
Thompson then completed his hat trick for a 5-3 lead.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves in the loss.
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