Sabres settle a three-time tie and beat Panthers 5-3 behind five different scorers

A game that kept resetting

Buffalo set the tone by refusing to let Florida’s equalizers turn into control. Josh Doan opened the scoring at 5:58 of the first period on a wrist shot from Peyton Krebs, but Anton Lundell answered at 11:00 to make it 1-1. The Sabres restored the lead before the intermission when Rasmus Dahlin scored on a slap shot at 15:55, with Jack Quinn and Thompson drawing the assists.

The second period followed the same script. Sam Reinhart tied the game again at 6:26, converting a play finished with a poke after setup from Seth Jones and Matthew Tkachuk. Ryan McLeod put Buffalo back in front at 11:25 on a wrist shot created by Olen Zellweger and Owen Power, only for Reinhart to strike again at 13:41, this time off a Brady Tkachuk feed and another Jones assist. The deadlock finally broke for good in the third, when Ostlund scored at 7:15 from Benson and Quinn, and Thompson’s wrist shot at 13:20 gave Buffalo the two-goal cushion it had been chasing all night.

Florida’s answers came, but Buffalo had more of them

Reinhart did almost everything he could to keep Florida in the game. He scored twice, Jones assisted on both goals, and Lundell added the Panthers’ other finish. Florida also owned some of the game’s territorial details, winning 54.4 per cent of the faceoffs and delivering 42 hits to Buffalo’s 14. Those numbers usually give a team a chance to settle a game on its terms.

What Florida never managed, though, was to turn those edges into enough separation on the scoreboard. Buffalo finished with a 32-23 advantage in shots and an 18-5 edge in blocked shots, a combination that helped limit the Panthers’ total volume while forcing their own goaltenders to handle heavier traffic. Both clubs used two netminders. Buffalo got 13 saves from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and seven from Colten Ellis, while Florida received 18 saves from Akira Schmid and nine from Jacob Markstrom.

Blue-line support and special teams gave Buffalo depth

Special teams kept the game lively. Florida went 2-for-4 on the power play, and Buffalo went 2-for-5, so neither side lost the special-teams battle outright. The more useful distinction came outside those chances: Buffalo still produced three goals beyond the power play, while Florida generated one. In a one-goal game entering the third period, that extra layer of offence mattered.

Buffalo also received meaningful production from the back end. Dahlin scored once, Power added two assists and Zellweger chipped in another helper. Power logged 26:31, Mattias Samuelsson played 26:59 and Zellweger skated 20:03, a heavy night for a defence corps that also helped hold Florida to 23 shots. On the other side, Jones played 23:55 and was Florida’s most productive defenceman with two assists, while Gustav Forsling led Panthers skaters in ice time at 24:10.

Our take

The Sabres won this game with breadth. Five different Buffalo players scored, and three others — Power, Krebs and Quinn — recorded two-point nights without needing the result to revolve around a single scoring line. That kind of distribution is difficult to defend over 60 minutes because an opponent can answer one threat and still get beaten by the next wave. Florida, by contrast, leaned heavily on Reinhart’s finishing and Jones’ playmaking once the game turned into a trade of responses.

For Buffalo, the caution flags are still visible even in victory. The Sabres lost the faceoff battle, were outhit badly and gave Florida four power-play opportunities that produced two goals. For Florida, the cleaner path to a better result is easier to spot on paper: 15 giveaways, only five blocked shots and 32 shots against left too little room for a team that otherwise won draws and converted on the power play. Monday’s result was not a blowout. It was a close game decided by which side found more complete offence, and Buffalo had the fuller answer.

Scoring moments

1. 1st · 5:58

   Josh Doan Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Peyton Krebs (3)

2. 1st · 11:00

   Anton Lundell Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Aaron Ekblad (2), Sandis Vilmanis (1)

3. 1st · 15:55

   Rasmus Dahlin Goal (2) Slap Shot, assists: Jack Quinn (1), Tage Thompson (3)

4. 2nd · 6:26

   Sam Reinhart Goal (1) Poke, assists: Seth Jones (1), Matthew Tkachuk (2)

5. 2nd · 11:25

   Ryan McLeod Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Olen Zellweger (1), Owen Power (5)

6. 2nd · 13:41

   Sam Reinhart Goal (2) Wrist Shot, assists: Brady Tkachuk (1), Seth Jones (2)

7. 3rd · 7:15

   Noah Ostlund Goal (2) Wrist Shot, assists: Zach Benson (2), Jack Quinn (2)

8. 3rd · 13:20

   Tage Thompson Goal (4) Wrist Shot, assists: Owen Power (6), Peyton Krebs (4)