TAMPA, Fla. — The Sabres are no longer an easy two points. They’re young, fast and tough to play against.
In fact, Buffalo was the league’s second-highest scoring team coming into Saturday night’s game at Amalie Arena.
Other than filling the net, Buffalo plays an aggressive game that forces opponents to make quick decisions, so the Lightning had their hands full.
In a high-tempo, back-and-forth game, Lightning rookie defenseman Nick Perbix’s first career NHL goal was the game-winner in Tampa Bay’s 5-3 victory. The win marked the Lightning’s sixth in their last eight games and extended their point streak to five games.
Backup goaltender Brian Elliott, filling in for starter Andrei Vasilevskiy after his 52-save effort in Thursday’s shootout loss to Carolina, won his third straight start with 21 saves.
Perbix’s goal capped a magnificent game for the Lightning’s top scoring line of Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov, which was on the ice for both of the final two goals.
Playing in his ninth career game, Perbix was trailing on the rush when he took a drop pass and unloaded a slap shot past Buffalo goaltender Eric Comrie.
Kucherov added an empty-net goal with 57.7 seconds remaining.
The Lightning had trouble cracking Comrie, who withstood a heavy dose of offensive pressure. Comrie denied Kucherov three times with momentum-shifting saves in the second period and early in the third.
But the Lightning were resilient, and Hagel scored the tying goal 7:40 into the third, taking a pass from Kucherov and following his initial shot, roofing his second chance when Comrie couldn’t cover the puck.
Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman made an impact quickly in his return to the ice after missing the past two games with an upper body injury, setting up the game’s first goal.
Hagel led a 2-on-1 rush, and couldn’t connect with Hedman along the far post, but Hedman stayed with the puck, circling back along the right circle and found Nick Paul trailing near the left hash, where Paul wristed a shot past Comrie.
