An even start to the game saw the Sabres open the scoring at 6:37 into the first period. Forward JJ Peterka scored his fifth of the season on the powerplay to give Buffalo a 1-0 lead.
The rest of the first period remained even — and scoreless. The Senators headed into the intermission down 1-0 after the first 20 minutes. Ottawa held the edge in shots at 13-10 after the first period.
Just 0:17 seconds into the second period, the Sabres doubled their lead to 2-0 when defenceman Bowen Byram scored his second goal of the season.
Goaltender Linus Ullmark made an incredible glove save on forward Sam Lafferty after the forward sprung onto a breakaway after jumping out of the box. Ullmark’s efforts were enough to keep the Senators in the game at 2-0.
The Senators got back within one after forward Ridly Greig after he tapped his own rebound home past goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to score his second of the season. Assists on the goal were awarded to forwards Tim Stützle and Brady Tkachuk. Greig’s goal came at 7:31 into the second period and served to shorten the Sabres’ lead to 2-1.
Ottawa and Buffalo remained deadlocked for the rest of the second period, as neither team found the back of the net again prior to heading into the second intermission.
It was a quick start for the Sabres early into the third period, as Bowen Byram scored his second of the game just 0:21 seconds in to double the Sabres’ lead to 3-1.
Just 0:16 seconds later, the Sabres struck again. A scramble in the goal crease saw the puck end up in the back of the net, with Alex Tuch receiving credit for the goal. The Senators challenged for goaltender interference, but the call on the ice was that Ottawa’s defenceman pushed the Buffalo player into goaltender Linus Ullmark. As a result, the Sabres went up 4-1 and the Senators headed to the penalty kill.
With 7:52 left in the third period, JJ Peterka scored his second of the game to put the Sabres up by a score of 5-1. Like his first goal, Peterka’s second came on the powerplay as well.
With just over two minutes remaining in the game, tempers started to flair and physicality began to ramp up in the dying minutes of the game. Despite outshooting the Sabres by a total of , the Senators were unable to come back after going down early in the game and fell to the Sabres by a final score of 5-1.
The Senators will look to bounce back when they return home on Thursday as they take on the New York Islanders at 7:00 p.m. ET. Thursday’s game will be part of the Senators’ Throwback Thursday series, which will offer fans exclusive throwback pricing on food and beverages, as well as an exclusive Throwback Thursday poster to select fans who arrive early. Tickets to Thursday’s game are available HERE.
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