After missing nine games due to injury, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s’ Ben Bishop made 24 saves in a 4-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres Thursday night.
“It felt great, it’s nice to get those competitive juices going in front of these fans,” Bishop said. “Obviously two points makes it a lot better.”
Ondrej Palat scored two goals in the win and Nikita Kucherov and Anton Stralman added markers for the Bolts.
“Give Buffalo credit, they pushed in the third and we bent a little but we didn’t break,” Tampa head coach Jon Cooper said. “Bishop had a lot to do with that. The saves he made, the way he played the puck, how many pucks he stopped behind the net, it just helped our defense. It was good to have him back.”
Matt Moulson scored i the first period off a 2-on-1 break.
“Yeah, it would’ve been nice to start with a little easier one,” Bishop said. “Not much you can do, guy made a pretty good shot. It was kind of a fluky play, bounced a couple of times. I wasn’t too worried about it. It was nice to get a couple saves after that.”
WATCH: All Sabres vs. Lightning highlights
Evander Kane added a marker in the Sabres loss.
“I thought we started working better in the third period,” Kane said. “Being aggressive. Not giving them any breakouts. That’s the way we have to play. We can’t sit back because they will take it to us.”
Anders Nilsson made 25 saves in the Buffalo net.
“We didn’t do a good job accepting their speed and we just couldn’t get anything going on our forecheck,” Sabres captain Brian Gionta said. “When we got the puck, we weren’t really moving.”
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