In Las Vegas, the Golden Knights held a 2-1 lead over the visiting Buffalo Sabres at 3:22 of the third period.
Then the Sabres broke the house.
Casey Mittelstadt started, and finished, a four-goal outburst beginning at 5:01 of the third to take an improbable 5-2 win on Friday night.
“That was a great effort all around,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “We looked fresh. We looked rested. We took advantage of that. We had great legs all the way through. We had to come back in the third, tied 1-1. We fall down 2-1 and the response was outstanding.”
Devon Levi made 33 saves in the Sabres win.
Buffalo moved to 13-15-3.
Jack Eichel scored at 3:22 of the the third to snap a 1-=1 tie and give the Knights a 2-1 lead.
“None of us are good enough in the third period tonight,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We let another lead get away from us without getting points tonight. So that’s a concern for me.
“We have the lead in the third period and we found ways the other two nights, today it caught up to us. We never got the opportunities to get the points. So after 2-1 to 4-2. … That to me is a problem.”
After Mittlestadt tied it at 2-2, Zach Benson scored just ahead of the midway point of the third to give the Sabres a 3-2 lead.
“Zach, again, is only 18 years old and looks like he’s been in the League for quite some time,” Granato said. “We finally get Tuch back in and feeling good. It’s a game or two, and it’s starting to look like he’s Tuch.”
Alex Tuch gave the Sabres some breathing room with a marker at 11:12 for a 4-2 lead.
Mittlestadt closed the outburst with an empty-net strike at 17:19 for the 5-2 final count.
Vegas dropped to 20-6-5.
“We played losing hockey, and we what do we do? We lost,” Cassidy said. “So there’s a little bit of a lesson to be learned there. We don’t lose a lot, but we lost tonight because of I think much more our actions. I’ll give Buffalo credit for doing what they do best when we messed up, which was you know, create offensive and good looks and they finished.”
After a scoreless first period, Dylan Cozens put the Sabres up, 1-0, at 7:42 of the middle frame.
“It was a big challenge tonight going against the defending [Stanley] Cup champs,” Cozens said. “We talked about it before that it was going to be a man’s game. And I think we did a lot of things good tonight, we played kind of a full 60 We didn’t make too many mistakes and we capitalized on our chances.”
Vegas’ Ivan Barbashev tied it, 1-1, at 13:44 with a power play strike.
Logan Thompson made 22 saves in the loss.
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