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The Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning entered their matchup on Sunday as two of the best teams in the NHL’s Eastern Conference and their battle lived up to the hype.
The two teams scored a combined 15 goals and earned more than 100 penalty minutes as brawls and scoring littered the ice. It was the Sabres that got the best of the Lightning in the end, winning the game 8-7.
Buffalo winger Josh Doan broke a tie with 4:17 left in the game, notching his 21st goal of the season. The Sabres’ victory was their seventh straight and pushed them two points ahead of the Lightning for the lead in the Atlantic Division.
“Obviously it’s exciting, but at the same time, I’ve been put in an opportunity to be successful here and help our team win,” Doan told reporters, via NHL.com. “… It’s a nice accomplishment, but we’ve got 18 or 19 games to go and hopefully we can keep racking up some wins.”
Tampa Bay had a 6-4 lead in the third period when Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point scored. Even as Sam Carrick cut Buffalo’s deficit to one goal, Brandon Hagel put Tampa Bay back up two with about 10 minutes left in the game.
Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin cut the lead to one and Jason Zucker tied the game with about 5:30 left in the game. Then, Doan scored on assists from Zucker and Dahlin.
“I think the group has got real tight, and it showed tonight,” Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said. “They answered every call, they were there at every play. … Just how hard we worked to get back in the game. There was no quit. The desire to finish this thing the right way, I thought every guy was on board.”
The game featured several brawls over the course of the game. Buffalo had seven power-play opportunities and converted on four of them. Tampa Bay had two and scored on one.
The teams had a combined 102 penalty minutes.
Buffalo is 39-19-6 with 18 games left to play and Tampa Bay is 39-19-4 with 20 games left to play. The Sabres have 84 points and the Lightning have 82 points this season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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