Mike Harrington: Remarkable victory was a 'galvanizing' moment for new era of Sabres hockey

Remarkable victory was a 'galvanizing' moment for Sabres

There's your game you might look back on as one for the history books when it comes to this era of Buffalo Sabres hockey. And, yes, these last three months feel like the start of an era.

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Alex Tuch asked us media types if we had fun Sunday night.

Memo to No. 89, who is always willing with a good quip: I ask the questions, I don't answer 'em. So I asked him the same thing back: Did you have fun?
"Oh yeah," said a beaming Tuch. "It's a lot of fun. That's hockey right there. It's awesome. Really happy to get the two points, and I'm just so proud of our team."
Darn right he should be.

The Sabres' mind-boggling, 8-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning easily rates as the game of the year in the NHL. And there hasn't been a night in KeyBank Center like that since the infamous brawl-juiced shootout win over Ottawa in 2007.


Buffalo Sabres right wing Alex Tuch, left, celebrates his goal in the second period of Sunday's game against the Lightning at KeyBank Center.
Joed Viera, Buffalo News

This one had everything. Goals, penalties, punchfests, ludicrous officiating. Stars doing star things. Tampa Bay's Brandon Hagel flat-out mugged Rasmus Dahlin. All of it.

There's your game, you might look back on as one for the history books when it comes to this era of Buffalo Sabres hockey.

And, yes, these last three months feel like the start of an era. This team is not going to be a one-hit wonder.

"That's kind of a galvanizing game," said coach Lindy Ruff. "Everybody involved. Everybody showed up. Lots of everything in that game. We've come a long way, obviously. The group has got real tight, and it showed tonight."

The Sabres aren't going to get pushed around by the Lightning's shenanigans, or whatever any other team wants to try. And in fact, they're going to add even more toughness to their lineup when 6-foot-7 Logan Stanley and veteran Luke Schenn get their visa issues squared away and can get on the ice sometime this week.

For a team with legitimate designs on playing well into May and maybe even June, that's an important takeaway.

Then there's the game itself. You're up three goals twice, and then you suddenly go from a 4-1 lead to deficits of 6-4 and 7-5. That would be one heck of a heartbreaker. Especially at home in a showdown for the division lead.

But this team wasn't going to cave. And neither did its fans.

"We could not have done this without the crowd we had," Dahlin said. "They kept us in the game the whole match, and it was an unbelievable atmosphere. That's probably the top I've experienced."

The fans were roaring most of the night. They were on their feet a whole lot of the time in the last seven minutes. It is KeyBank Library no more.

"It gave me chills at the end of the game how loud they were," Tuch said.

Added Jason Zucker: "My ears are still ringing."

The fists and sticks and cheap shots were flying all night. The teams combined for 102 penalty minutes, and the boxes were overflowing with players at one stage of the first period.

The building was in an uproar, the entertainment value off the chart. It was March 8, and it may as well have been May 8.

If you have forgotten what the Stanley Cup playoffs are like, there was your taste.

A lot of tough times would have to strike one team or the other for the Sabres and Lightning to meet in Round 1 of the playoffs. But they would be on a clear collision course for Round 2.

The first three games of this season series have been pretty epic. Sunday's affair was downright seismic in multiple ways.

The Lightning clearly established they were going to go after Dahlin, and the Sabres better put a target on the likes of Nikita Kucherov or Brayden Point. You go after our star, we're going after yours.

And if you really want eye-for-an-eye justice, the Sabres are going to have to make some statements on Tampa Bay winger Hagel. The long-ago Buffalo draft pick entered the game with 29 goals and 57 points and should be exiting it with at least a fine, if not a suspension from the NHL's Department of Player Safety.


Players from the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres fill their penalty boxes in the first period Sunday at KeyBank Center.
Joed Viera/Buffalo News

Hagel mugged Dahlin with repeated blows from behind during one second-period scrum that officials were far too slow to put the kibosh on. Josh Doan got in to stop Hagel − with goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen just a stride behind.

"I think I stayed calm," Dahlin said. "We got a power play goal out of it. We just have to continue to do that, frustrate the other guys, and then get some power plays."

"I'm not a referee, but a situation like that usually, a guy gets kicked out," Ruff said. "He doesn't get four (minutes). He probably should get two for every punch, and it probably would lead to at least 20 minutes."

According to OptaStats, the NHL had not had a game with 15 goals and 28 penalties since a Washington-St. Louis affair in 1993. The Lightning had won 60 straight games when scoring 7-plus goals, and their only loss in franchise history when scoring that many was a 9-7 defeat to Calgary in their 1992-93 inaugural season.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper has waited for years for the Sabres to get good. He always liked their prospects in the Jack Eichel era. Before the game, he had some prescient thoughts on where they're headed that were backed up by the game.

"Good for them. I'm happy for them," Cooper said, pointing down the hall to the Sabres locker room. "I'm happy for the City of Buffalo. It's probably our biggest TV market we have in the NHL, and they never get to see their own team in the playoffs, and so it's super-cool they support their team all this time, and their team is going to go to the playoffs. That is super-cool."

It sure was.
The Sabres and Lightning will meet here again on April 6. And who knows after that? Wouldn't that be fun?

"Finally, we're here," Dahlin said. "We're doing good things. I don't take this for granted at all. I'm so fired up. I'm so happy for Buffalo as a city, for all the fans."
The old coach was happy, too.

"Just to see all the smiles on the faces, to see the reaction of them coming into the room, it puts a smile on a coach's face," Ruff said. "You see a couple guys, faces a little swollen, a couple of scrapes.

"It just puts a smile on my face. That's my kind of hockey."

 

[HipKat]

‘This game was a huge step for us’: Sabres ride emotions and rally to move into first place in Atlantic Division​

‘This game was a huge step for us’: Sabres ride emotions and rally to move into first place in Atlantic Division

“The first-place Buffalo Sabres” has a bit of a ring to it, doesn’t it?

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“The first-place Buffalo Sabres” has a bit of a ring to it, doesn’t it?

It’s an unfamiliar ring, given the Sabres haven’t made the playoffs since 2011, let alone been in reach of the top of their division in the NHL standings.

An 8-7 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday at KeyBank Center made it official: The Sabres are atop the Atlantic Division.


Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin takes a shot in the third period of Sunday's game against the Lightning at KeyBank Center.
Joed Viera, Buffalo News

The Sabres rallied from a 7-4 deficit in the third period, as Josh Doan’s power-play goal with less than five minutes left in regulation became the game-winner and helped the Sabres earn their seventh win in a row. Entering Monday, the Sabres have 84 points, two ahead of Tampa Bay and five ahead of Detroit.

The good vibes of being a first-place team can be fleeting. The Sabres still have 18 regular-season games, including one more against Tampa Bay on April 6 at KeyBank Center. But the win Sunday against the Lightning says this much: The Sabres are in the thick of the playoff race.

The win spoke volumes to the Sabres in a game that had just about every peak and valley.

“My ears are still ringing,” said Jason Zucker, who scored two goals and had an assist. “It was pretty loud, it was pretty fun. It was a hell of an atmosphere to be a part of.”

The two teams combined for 15 goals and 28 penalties, including 15 penalties in the first 12 minutes of the game, a tally that included six fighting majors – three against the Sabres and three against the Lightning – in that span, as the two teams dropped the gloves at least three times, either in scrums or separate fights.

“I think this goes down as one of the crazier games I have played and have seen,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said.


Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin celebrates the game-winning goal by right wing J
osh Doan in the third period of the game between the Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning
at KeyBank Center on Sunday, March 8, 2026. Joed Viera, Buffalo News

Dahlin, especially, can attest. His face wore fresh welts, the residue of two tussles: a first-period fight against Darren Raddysh, and a second-period tangle with Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel, who swarmed Dahlin from behind early in the second period. Hagel took a four-minute double-minor for roughing at 3:35 of the second.

“Usually a guy gets kicked out,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said of Hagel’s penalty. “He doesn’t get four. He probably should get two for every punch. That probably would lead to at least 20 minutes (in penalties) and then get kicked out. But I’m not the referee, so I’ll let them decide.”

How Dahlin’s team handled the wide range of emotions was most impressive to the Sabres captain. At one point, the Sabres led the Lightning 4-1 with nine minutes left in the second period, but the Lightning scored the next five goals in the final eight minutes of the second and first six minutes of the third to take a 6-4 lead.

“This group has gotten really tight, and it showed tonight,” Ruff said. “They answered every call, and they were there in every play. Even getting down. You’re up 4-1, you get down by a couple. Just how hard we worked to get back in the game, there was no quit. The desire to finish this thing the right way, every guy was on board.”

The Sabres erased a 6-4 deficit in the final nine minutes of the third period, after Tampa opened the lead to 7-5 on Hagel’s goal at 9:48.

Dahlin and Jason Zucker scored at 11:03 and 14:29 to tie the score, and Doan’s power-play goal lifted the Sabres to their seventh consecutive win.

“We did a good job of holding our own against them,” said Doan, who eclipsed the 20-goal threshold with two goals against the Lightning. “They’ve got a team that can muck it up with the best of them, and we stood in there and then battled back. We were down two in the third period, and there was no give-up on our bench. We felt confident that we’re right there. One shot away is going to make the difference.”

That shot became Doan’s second goal of the game. With Zemgus Girgensons penalized for slashing at 15:03, Dahlin’s initial shot from the right point hit the post. Doan, opposite Zucker in front of the crease, pushed the rebound past Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson, who was out of position on the play, for his second goal of the game and the game-winner.

“This game was a huge step for us, as a team,” said Dahlin, who scored a goal with two assists. “Every guy in this room, we’re a part of it, and we stepped up when we had to. I’m so proud of the guys, and this is just going to make us even better.”

 

[HipKat]

The Athletic: Inside Sabres-Lightning: 15 goals, 102 penalty minutes and a statement win for Buffalo​

Inside Sabres-Lightning: 15 goals, 102 penalty minutes and a statement win for Buffalo

"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," captain Rasmus Dahlin said.

www.nytimes.com

The Sabres celebrated their win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at KeyBank Center and fans joined in. "
My ears are still ringing," forward Jason Zucker said. Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images

When the final horn sounded on the Buffalo Sabres’ 8-7 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, you couldn’t hear it over the roar of the crowd.

Buffalo fans treated this Sunday night game against the Lightning like it was the biggest game in more than a decade. Because for the Sabres, it was. This building hasn’t hosted a playoff game since 2011. You can count the number of “meaningful” March games it has hosted on one hand. But Sunday, the Sabres had a chance to take sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Division away from the Lightning.

So after a three-hour slugfest between the Sabres and Lightning that featured 15 goals, 102 penalty minutes, five fights, a dozen scrums and two blown multi-goal leads, the Sabres fans in attendance let out the type of emotion that a generation of fans hasn’t experienced.

“My ears are still ringing,” Sabres forward Jason Zucker said in the dressing room after the game.

Added Alex Tuch: “It gave me chills.”

And captain Rasmus Dahlin: “We could not have done this without the crowd we had. They kept us in the game the whole match. It was an unbelievable atmosphere. I think that was probably top I’ve experienced.”

This game got heated less than five minutes in, but it started last weekend. When the Sabres dominated the Lightning in a 6-2 win in Tampa, Fla., last week, the Lightning wanted to drag the Sabres into the mud. Tampa Bay racked up 28 penalty minutes in that game and wanted the game to get messy.

So the Sabres had an idea of what to expect coming into this matchup.

“You never know, right?” Zucker said. “Last game, there was, obviously, a little bit of that stuff going on in Tampa, so we had a feeling. But we feel good about our group, feel good that we can stand up for each other and play in any type of game.”

That type of game got going quickly. Lightning forwards Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli hit Tage Thompson from behind into the boards. That prompted every Sabre on the ice to jump in to defend Thompson, leading to Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh and Dahlin dropping the gloves. Dahlin came out on the wrong end, but the message was sent that the Sabres were comfortable playing that kind of game.

“I tried to stand for myself in the beginning, but it went how it did,” Dahlin said. “But, I mean, it’s a part of it. I know it. It was really good to have this experience going into something hopefully bigger and kind of learn from it. I’m out there to play the game of hockey, not do stupid stuff.”

The Lightning kept testing the Sabres, though. By the end of the first period, the teams had combined for 70 penalty minutes and just one goal, which came from Josh Doan on the power play. Sam Carrick and Scott Sabourin fought. So did Hagel and Peyton Krebs. And within the first six seconds of the second period, Michael Kesselring dropped the gloves with Erik Cernak and Beck Malenstyn fought Corey Perry. For a while, it seemed like every whistle produced a scrum and every Sabre got involved at some point.

“We’ve come a long ways, obviously,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think the group has got real tight, and it showed tonight. They answered every call, they were there at every play.”

The Lightning’s Corey Perry and the Sabres’ Beck Malenstyn participated in one of the several fights between the two teams Sunday night.
(Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn ImagesO

The fighting was one thing, but Hagel took it to another level just over three minutes into the second period. After Dahlin cross-checked Hagel in front of the net, Hagel went after him, trying to fight. When Dahlin turned away, Hagel punched him three times in the back of the head. He kept swinging as Dahlin fell to the ice. Every Sabre on the ice, including goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, was there to jump in. Somehow, Hagel got only a double minor for roughing. The Sabres scored on the power play to take a 3-0 lead.

“Obviously not too happy with that,” Tuch said of Hagel’s behavior. “When you have a guy as good as Dahls, you know he’s going to get targeted a lot. Obviously, there’s a line sometimes, but I was proud of our group for not backing down. Every guy was in there after that one.”

The Lightning didn’t go away. They continued to play the nasty, physical style they’ve become known for, and found some offensive touch. After the Sabres went up 4-1 on a short-handed goal from Tuch, the Lightning scored five straight goals. The Sabres looked like they’d been worn out by extracurriculars in the first half of the game. When Nikita Kucherov scored 59 seconds into the third period to give the Lightning a 5-4 lead, the energy started getting zapped from the building. Then Brayden Point got credited with a goal when Byram unintentionally put the puck in the net when trying to clear it, increasing the Sabres ‘ deficit to 6-4.

“A lot of momentum swings both ways,” Zucker said. “Obviously, we were feeling really good early, and then we were down. You have to find a way to start playing hockey. That was the best part about it. We found a way to get back in the game and start playing hockey again and not let all the rough stuff get us off our game too much and take away from what we were trying to do, which was win the game ultimately.”

The Sabres got some life when Carrick scored his first goal as a Sabre to cut Tampa Bay’s lead to 6-5. But Hagel took that energy right back when he capitalized on a wide-open rebound left by Luukkonen left to make it 7-5. That it was Hagel, who had taken a cheap shot at Dahlin earlier in the game, added insult to injury.

“I think we got a chance right after they were up two, and then we were screaming on the bench, like, we have a chance if we just keep playing, one shot,” Dahlin said. “We stayed in with it the whole game. The bench was awesome. I mean, the team was unbelievable.”

Dahlin was the one who answered. He weaved through the offensive zone and snuck a perfect shot by Jonas Johansson to make it 7-6. The crowd came alive after that. And it got even louder when Zucker broke down the wing and got behind the Lightning for a backhand goal off the rush to tie the score at 7.

Fittingly, a penalty is what ultimately decided the game. Lightning forward Zemgus Girgensons, who played 10 seasons for the Sabres, took a slashing penalty that brought the game total to 100 penalty minutes. On the power play, Dahlin rang a shot off the post, and Doan picked up the rebound to make it 8-7.

The Lightning came into this game with the third-best penalty kill in the NHL, and the Sabres scored four power-play goals, including that game-winner.

“That’s sometimes part of the game that your power play needs to bail you out of games and be good for you to win hockey games,” Doan said.

The Sabres had to hang on for the last five minutes of the game, but as the final seconds ticked away, they got a taste of what a playoff atmosphere might look and sound like in Buffalo.

“It’s just finally — 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.”

Anyone who has been paying attention to the Sabres the last few months knows they are contenders. The playoffs look inevitable at this point as they’ve now won seven straight games coming out of the Olympic break. But a game like this one shows that when the temperature turns up in the postseason, they’re not going anywhere.

The Lightning thought this game might be a chance to push the Sabres around and give them something to think about heading into the playoffs. Instead, the Sabres’ response might have sparked a rivalry. The Lightning will be back in Buffalo on April 6. And there’s a chance they’ll meet in a playoff series at some point.

“If we’re being honest there, there’s a chance that we’re gonna see them down the road and that plays a part in it,” Lightning defenseman J.J. Moser said. “You want to show them that if that’s gonna happen, they’re not gonna have their way, and that’s just how the game works.”

Added Doan: “I think we kind of know what to expect now from them, and they know what to expect from us.”

Before the game, Lightning coach Jon Cooper downplayed the brewing rivalry between these teams. He acknowledged how great a story Buffalo’s revival is but wanted to focus on figuring out his own team. After Sunday, the rivalry is hard to ignore, and the Lightning are looking up at the Sabres in the division.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Tuch said of the Sabres’ turnaround.

That led to the rowdiest crowd Buffalo has had in years. Fans were chanting, “We hate Tampa!” throughout the game and left the building bringing back the old “Sabres on the warpath!” chant.

“That’s the crowd that we’ve been looking forward to and the crowd that this city deserves,” Doan said. “Obviously, it’s been a rocky road for the last couple of years, but we’re starting to find it and hopefully bring hockey back in Buffalo.”