Buffalo stormed back from a 7-5 deficit to win its 7th straight game.
Lindy Ruff couldn’t help but smile as his players returned to the locker room, battered and bruised but unquestionably thrilled after the best Buffalo Sabres game in years.
Ruff has had a front-row seat to nearly all of KeyBank Center’s canon moments – the ’99 Cup run, Jason Pominville in overtime, the Ottawa Brawl.
And while the conclusion to the story of these Sabres remains unwritten, there’s no question that for years to come, people will recall the events of Buffalo 8, Tampa Bay 7 – the “Sunday Punch,” as it was dubbed on social media.
All thanks to those bruised players who wouldn’t quit.
“You see a couple guys, their faces a little swollen, a couple little scrapes,” Ruff said. “It just puts a smile on your face. That’s my kind of hockey.”
Where most games have one defining moment to grab ahold of and lock into memory, this one had enough for people to pick and choose.
Some will remember the sight of five Sabres players jumping into a pile after Tage Thompson was hit illegally along the boards in the game’s opening minutes. Others will recall the sight of three smiling black-and-red jerseys squeezed into the Buffalo penalty box, embracing Peyton Krebs as he joined them after a fight.
All will remember the comebacks – first by the Lightning, who trailed 4-1 in the second period, and then by the Sabres, who trailed by scores of 6-4 and 7-5 before storming ahead to win in regulation.
The scoresheet will fill in the blanks: five fights, 102 penalty minutes, 15 goals.
“That’s hockey right there,” Alex Tuch said. “It’s awesome. I’m really happy to get the two points. I’m so proud of our team.”
FINAL | Sabres 8 – Lightning 7
This was a game that exceeded the lofty expectations that preceded it. The Sabres and Lightning came into the night tied atop the Atlantic Division. The winner would be alone in first place – not a final result by any means, but a benchmark for a Sabres team that has climbed the standings for three months as the NHL’s best team.
Buffalo and Tampa Bay had already played two entertaining games down in Florida over the past month, a last-second win by the Lightning followed by a blowout win by the Sabres. Just eight days removed from that latter result, the Lightning came to town intent on establishing themselves as an imposing physical presence, with a particular target on Buffalo’s best players – beginning when Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli combined for that late hit on Thompson along the boards.
And every time the Lightning asserted themselves, the Sabres answered. All five Sabres on the ice jumped into a pile within seconds of the hit on Thompson, a scrum that ended with Rasmus Dahlin dropping the gloves and fighting Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh.
That first scrum set the tone for the game’s first 30 minutes. Erik Cernak hit Josh Norris away from the puck and earned an early interference call, setting the stage for Josh Doan’s power-play goal to open the scoring. Minutes later, Sam Carrick – in his second game with the Sabres after being acquired at the deadline – fought Scott Sabourin.
Krebs fought Hagel next, to the unanimous approval of the 19,070 in attendance and his three teammates in the penalty box.
Any hopes that tempers had cooled during intermission were quickly dashed by two fights off the opening draw of the second period: Michael Kesselring vs. Cernak, followed by Beck Malenstyn vs. Corey Perry.
Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen made it a point to add physicality with four deadline acquisitions. The most imposing of those players, 6-foot-7 defenseman Logan Stanley, was watching Sunday from the press box as he awaited visa clearance (and will likely be in the lineup when these teams rematch on April 6).
In the meantime, the guys on the ice showed they could hold their own.
“We don’t have the biggest team out there always or the most, I guess it would be toughest fighters out there, but at the same time, we’ve got guys that’ll stand up for each other,” Doan said. “You saw it tonight, there was five fights in the game and our guys all held their own in those.
“But it’s one of those things where we have a close group, we’ve talked a lot about that this year, if you see one of your brothers getting jumped like that, you’ve got to get in there and help him out.”
The Lightning’s post-whistle fixation actually played into the Sabres’ hands early. They scored three power-play goals – from Doan, Jason Zucker, and Alex Tuch – to jump out to a 3-0 lead. The third goal came after Hagel, having failed to goad Dahlin into a fight, threw a series of punches to the back of the Sabres captain’s head.
Hagel received a double-minor for roughing.
“I’m not a referee, but a situation like that, usually a guy gets kicked out,” Ruff said. “He doesn’t get four. He probably should get two for every punch, and it would probably lead to at least 20 minutes, and then get kicked out. But I’m not the referee, so I’ll let them decide that.”
Hagel’s staying in the game proved meaningful. Corey Perry scored to put the Lightning on the board, then – after a shorthanded goal for Tuch – a power-play goal for Nikita Kucherov cut Buffalo’s lead to 4-2. The Lightning added two goals in the next six minutes to tie the score 4-4, which held into the second intermission.
In the third period, Hagel delivered a cross-ice pass to set up Kucherov for the go-ahead goal, then Brayden Point scored off a broken play to make it 6-4.
Carrick scored his first goal with the Sabres to pump life back into the building, but Hagel answered with yet another Lightning goal to make the score 7-5 with 10:12 remaining.
“We were screaming on the bench, like, we have a chance if we just keep playing,” Dahlin said. “One shot. We stayed in with it the whole game.”
Dahlin took matters into his own hands to ignite the comeback, driving to the net and flipping a shot past goaltender Jonas Johansson to bring the Sabres within one.
Zucker scored the tying goal on a breakaway with 5:31 left to play. And, on yet another power play, Dahlin sent a shot off the crossbar which Doan pushed over the goal line for the winner with 4:17 on the clock.
KeyBank Center’s eighth straight sellout crowd was sent into a frenzy.
“That’s the crowd that we’ve been looking forward to and the crowd that this city deserves,” Doan said.
Perhaps more so than any one game detail, the crowd on Sunday will live in the memories of those in attendance, players included. It was the sort of loud, emotionally charged atmosphere that players on this team had been told to expect once they brought the franchise back into postseason contention.
In short, it was 2006 in 2026.
These guys are good, scary good!@BuffaloSabres
Suddenly, comparisons to that unforgettable 2005-06 team that was celebrated in January aren’t so unreasonable. The Sabres are 28-5-2 since Dec. 9, tied as the seventh-best 35-game stretch in NHL history (according to TSN).
They’ve won seven straight games for the second time this season – the first Sabres team to do so since, you guessed it, 2005-06.
And, like that group 20 years ago, they’ve begun to rally a city.
“Finally we’re here, and we’re doing good things,” Dahlin said. “So I don’t take this for granted at all. I’m so fired up. I’m so happy. I’m so happy for Buffalo as a city and all the fans, too. This means the world.”
Buffalo vs Everybody ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/4XcqT81X8n
The homestand continues against San Jose on Tuesday. Coverage on MSG begins at 6:30 p.m. with puck drop scheduled for 7.
Limited tickets are still available – get yours today.
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