The Buffalo Sabres started their current West Coast road trip with a 5-4 shoot-out won over the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night. Cory Hodgson scored in the fourth round of the shootout and Ryan Miller made 47 saves and the Sabres won despite blowing two third period leads.
Henrik Tallinder, Cody McCormick, Drew Stafford and Tyler Ennis also scored for the Sabres, who have now beaten San Jose five straight times.
Tyler Kennedy and Tomas Hertl scored 70 seconds apart early in the third to erase a two-goal deficit for the Sharks. Tommy Wingels got another equalizer late in the third, but San Jose still lost its third straight game. Marty Havlat also scored and Antti Niemi made 32 saves.
The third period was filled with excitement with the teams combining for five goals starting when Ennis scored Buffalo’s second road power-play goal of the season to make it 3-2.
But the Sharks erased that lead in a flash.
The first goal came when Joe Pavelski won a faceoff to Marc-Edouard Vlasic, whose shot deflected toward Kennedy, who knocked it in for his second goal of the season 3:19 into the period.
Then just over a minute later, Hertl took a rebound of Scott Hannan’s shot and skated around the net for a wraparound goal that was his ninth of the season.
The Sabres appeared on their way to a rare win when Tallinder scored midway through the third and then they had a two-man advantage later in the period. But Jamie McBain hit the post during the 5-on-3, and the Sharks tied it late in the period shortly after a penalty to Marcus Foligno ended.
Wingels dove into the crease to knock in the loose puck to tie the game and excite the sellout crowd.
What appeared to be a decided mismatch on paper between a Buffalo team that had one regulation win all season, and a San Jose team with just one regulation loss was anything but on ice. The Sabres overcame an early deficit and scored twice in the second period to take a 2-1 lead heading into the third.
The first goal came off a San Jose mistake as Jason Demers and Kennedy had trouble clearing the puck out of the defensive zone, and Stafford capitalized, beating Niemi with a quick wrister to tie the game early in the second.
Just seconds after Kennedy and Johan Larsson were sent off for fighting midway through the period, Zemgus Girgensons won an offensive zone faceoff from Andrew Desjardins. McCormick got the loose puck and beat Niemi with a wrist shot between his pads to give Buffalo the lead.
The Sabres now travel to Los Angeles to take on the Kings Thursday night for a 10:30 EST game start.
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Tagged with: Buffalo Sabres, San Jose Sharks
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