In Tampa Wednesday, the Buffalo Sabres’ Jason Pominville struck early in overtime to defeat the Lightning, 2-1.
“I think my first one-timer was a better shot but [Vasilevskiy] made a nice save,” Pominville said. “I was able to get another one through and I think it just got through, he probably didn’t see it. It was nice to be able to get the extra point.”
Chad Johnson made 21 saves for Buffalo in the win.
“We got the result we deserved tonight,” Johnson said. “I thought we played a really good game. We hit a lot of posts and had some opportunities, so it was nice to get that win in overtime.”
Evan Rodrigues scored the Sabres’ regulation goal.
“I think we [had] all 20 guys pulling in the right direction,” Rodrigues said. “We didn’t have anyone cheating on the wrong side of the puck. We stuck with our game plan. As the game wore [on], we didn’t try cheating for offense. We all stuck to the defensive side of the puck, and when you do that you wear the other team down and you get rewarded.”
Cory Conacher scored the lone goal for the Bolts as they dropped to 43-17-4 with the loss but also reached 90 points and are five points clear of the Toronto Maple Leafs for the top spot in the Atlantic.
“There was one team that looked like they are getting close to making the playoffs and preparing to play in the postseason and the one team looked like they weren’t,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Take that from there which team was which.”
Copper was not pleased with his club’s performance given the recent history against the s.
“We just went in to Buffalo and lost two weeks ago (5-3 on Feb. 13) and we just played them again and lost,” Cooper said after the loss. “You would think that a team that beat you just recently, I don’t know if there is any more motivation than we now have them in our home building and let’s take care of business regardless of who you played the game before, that is irrelevant to me. It’s a consistency thing and it’s game to game, you have to bring it every night.”
[WATCH: All Sabres vs. Lightning highlights]
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 32 saves in taking the loss.
“We tried to create some energy by mixing things up there, but I don’t know exactly what our problem was tonight,” Conacher said. “We probably were not supporting each other enough like we should. We weren’t as predictable as we were against the [Maple] Leafs (in a 4-3 shootout win Monday) and the emotions weren’t there as well.”
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