BUFFALO, NY – The Florida Panthers scored three first period goals as they defeated the Sabres, 7-4.
Roberto Luongo helped Panthers snap skid in Buffalo
After losing Monday night to the Detroit Red Wings in a shutout, the Panthers managed to rediscover their offense in Buffalo.
Reilly Smith, Brian Campbell and Jussi Jokinen scored in the opening 20 minutes.
“It seems like we’re always kind of on a roll once we get that first one and we were able to pick up the second and third in the first period,” Smith said. “That’s definitely big and that definitely gave us a little bit of a jump tonight.”
Coming into Buffalo, the Panthers had lost two straight and given the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens are both heating up, Florida needed a win.
“The guys were disappointed last night,” coach Gerard Gallant said. “They played real good [for] two periods in Detroit, but the third period wasn’t good and tonight was a big bounce-back game for us. We needed that game tonight because you hate to have those little slides and I thought tonight we came out and played really well.”
Alex Petrovic, Jaromir Jagr and Brandon Pirri also scored for the Panthers who got two goals from Smith in the game.
Brian Campbell and Roberto Luongo
“It’s definitely a treat to play with [Jokinen]; he does a lot of the little things well,” Smith said. “He makes life easy for me and [Vincent Trocheck]. It seems like every game he’s coming to play and he’s making big plays. It’s been awesome playing with him and hopefully the success we’ve had continues.”
Roberto Luongo picked up the win on 30 saves and needed to solid in the third period as the Sabres were pushing.
“[Luongo] made a huge save when it was 4-2 and that was a turning point in the game and shortly after that Pirri scored the deflection goal,” Gallant said. “Buffalo wasn’t going to quit. They’re a good team. When they made it 4-2, [Luongo] made that big save and that was the difference.”
Robin Lehner started for the Sabres but was chased after the Panthers made it 4-0 to start the second.
“No, we didn’t [help Lehner], and we didn’t help [Johnson], either, when he came in,” Sabres defenseman Josh Gorges said. “I think in that situation when they made the goalie change, it has to wake us up as a team. It had nothing to do with our goaltending. We didn’t play good enough.”
Sam Reinhart scored twice and Evander Kane and Mike Weber scored for the Sabres.
“We felt we kind of handed all those goals to them,” Reinhart said. “You give them credit as well, but we could’ve prevented a lot of them. It was a little rattling, and we were able to make a little bit of a push, but it wasn’t enough.”
All images by David.Sturm@prohockeynews.com
