Ullmark would eventually be replaced by goalie Chad Johnson.
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Unfortunately, the Tampa Bay Lightning came up empty on the Power Play. Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper has said on multiple occasions that he wants to make it so the Tampa Bay Lightning has a 1a and 1b goaltending situation.
Sabres coach Dan Bylsma pulled Ullmark, and then the Sabres put six shots on Vasilevskiy in the first 3 minutes of the second period.
“As a team, I think we’ve been working on catching those passes on the boards with your back towards the D. Good play by [Ennis], I just wanted to kind of push the D back”.
– Buffalo does a tremendous job honoring its former greats in and around the arena. The Nittany Lions play at Niagara University on Friday. Ullmark lasted only 20 minutes, stopping eight of 11 shots.
Even the Lightning’s own Dave Andreychuk gets in on the act. Andreychuk’s picture can be found in the locker room tunnel, and at a nearby Italian restaurant frequented by Tampa Bay staffers and visiting media, a picture of former Sabres captains, Andreychuk included, is on display.
Andreychuk spent the majority of his career in Buffalo, playing 12 years and 837 games with the Sabres.
Slowly the Lightning appear to be rekindling their game. “We just completely lost our game”, defenseman Anton Stralman said.
The Lightning quickly put that dubious stat to bed later that night. As of late, Johnson has started to return to form as he has had two goals in his last three games.
The Sabres need to be more wary of long passes across the ice.
As Sabres players left the ice to change their lineups, gaps were created and not closed thus allowing for the Lightning to dominate the first period. Nikita Kucherov scored the lone goal in the second on a five on three power play but Ben Bishop’s 27 stops wasn’t enough to avert the loss.
There was a scary moment in the later moments of the third period.
The Sabres continued their attack on the Bolts’ goal throughout the middle frame. Tampa Bay is 3-0 against Buffalo this season. Vasilevskiy stopped all but one, a standout goal from rookie Eichel.
Stamkos scored his seventh goal on a lovely cross-zone feed from new linemate Valtteri Filppula. “He expects that from himself”. Although Tye’s team won the game, so… “Good to get his confidence going”.
– By the way, Eichel is pretty darn good and showed it again Thursday.
The first period of this game was anything but decent as far as the Sabres were concerned. “You don’t see that often on the road in the National Hockey League”. He skated through the offensive zone and snapped a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
For a kid with a lot of hype coming out of college, he’s certainly delivering on the promise. With just 30 seconds left in the game, Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman would sink the puck into the Empty Net and seal the deal for the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was the third of four meetings between the Sabres and Lightning this season.
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It wasn’t attractive, but it was effective.
