In Tampa, Tage Thompson scored at 11:33 of the third period to get the visiting Buffalo Sabres even with the Lightning, 2-2, and force extra time on Thursday night. 
“It wasn’t pretty, but we’ve got some individual skill and talent in this group,” Dahlin said. “We knew coming into this game that it was really important. I’m just happy we won.”
The goal came off a power play in the extra session, with Casey Mittlestadt setting up the winner.
“Honestly I wanted to get it to [Tage Thompson], but I think everyone has seen him shoot, so they were trying to take that away,” Middlestadt said. “It felt like Rasmus was pretty open and he fought through traffic and did a good job putting it away.”
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 21 saves in the win.
The Sabres moved to 28-28-4 off their fourth win in five matches.
“I felt like it’s been coming and some nights they’re not going in for you, tonight we got rewarded,” Thompson said. “Every win matters. Obviously, the last game (a 3-2 loss to the Florida Panthers on Tuesday) didn’t end the way we wanted. I felt like we deserved a better outcome, but tonight we were on the right side of things.”
Brayden Point staked the Lightning to a 1-0 lead on a power play goal 8:12 of the opening stanza.
“We need the points, so it’s tough to lose the points,” Point said. “I think we carried a lot of the play tonight. We did a lot of good things. Then we took a penalty and they scored on it, and took one in OT and they scored on it.”
Tampa dropped to 32-24-6 off their second straight loss.
“I thought we played pretty well until we took the penalties in the end,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Tip your hat, their goaltender played pretty well. He made some ten-bell saves when we probably could have put this game a little bit out of reach. He kept them in it, and they kept plugging away.”
The Sabres tied the game, 1-1, on a strike by Alex Tuch midway through the first, sending the game to the middle frame tied, 101.
In the middle frame, Tampa’s Mitchell Chaffee scored at 17:18 for the 2-1 lead headed to the third .
“I thought we were forchecking well, we had a lot of chances,” Chaffee said. “I think you just don’t get some of those bounces some nights and it kind of felt like this was one of those nights.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves in the loss.
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