Tampa Bay Lightning lose their grip on the Atlantic Division after a wild 8-7 defeat to the Buffalo Sabres, featuring 15 goals, 7 fights, and 102 penalty minutes. Can Jon Cooper’s squad recover as Buffalo surges and the Lightning’s once-dominant defense shows alarming cracks? Nick Morgan examines whether Nikita Kucherov’s scoring heroics and Corey Perry’s gritty return—complete with goals and a classic scrap—are enough to keep the Bolts in contention.
Key topics include the Lightning’s penalty kill collapse, sluggish defensive pairings, the late-game implosion against Buffalo, and Corey Perry’s surprising deadline acquisition. With Andrei Vasilevskiy, Brayden Point, and Victor Hedman facing new pressure, is Tampa Bay built for a deep playoff run or in danger of sliding further? Hear the urgent breakdown of what’s gone wrong—and what must change—before the season’s critical stretch run.
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21 Comments
What's your "one word" to describe the Lightning's 8-7 loss to the Buffalo Sabres?
Circus.
Disappointing
If the Bolts just play Toronto every game they will be killing it. 😁
Why start Vasy vs Toronto, and JoJo vs. Buffalo? I don't like playing like the Bruins and/or Panthers unless playing said teams. I did not enjoy last night's game. Is Cernak injured now as well?
Perry got his ass beat
Defense sucks since Hedman came back.
He's a bad Captain and the kids are better defensively.
You can thank the players for chirping at the Buffalo Bench and waking them up when there old ass team had no legs left lmfao
They did the exact same thing when we came back from the Olympics we played Toronto first then Carolina and then we played Toronto and then the sabers WHY DID VASY TEND THE TORONTO GAMES and are back up goalie tend the net against carolina who we were fighting for second OVERALL in the whole league then are back up when we are playing for first in the division a month out from play offs
Mom always said let the scoreboard do the talking, not your mouth. Well, Sabres weren’t the ones mouthing off
TB was gassed in the last 10 minutes. 👍👍
5:05 The 4-0 first period during their last meeting. Tampa realized the Sabres are for real and if they want to win they have to play the sabres like it's the playoffs. and from the second period onward you had players get more aggressive. This is gonna be a great Rivalry! First real sabres rivalry in my lifetime, an exciting time to be a Sabres fan.
What a joke hagel only got 5k fine.
The Tampa coach doesn’t understand why Buffalo had more PPs lol ha ha!!! He seriously is that dumb? Because Tampa is a nasty dirty team, they check from behind, Kucherov takes out guys knees, Cernak elbowed Dahlin in the head gave him a concussion a while back…Hagel and his sidekick check Thompson from behind for no reason when he isn’t even near the puck! Any Tampa fan, coach or player that doesn’t know this team is dirty and nasty is clueless. They want to intimidate and intentionally hurt players, I like hits and rough play but not that type of nonsense. I’m happy Cernak got hurt acting like an idiot, he still needs payback for his elbow to our best players head!
oof. if PK has been your guys' weakness as of late then I really don’t understand the game plan your coach came up with against the Sabres haha
Tampa played like dirty 🐀's and tried the intimidation game and it didn't work. 2-0-1 against Tampa this season… 7-3-1 their last 11. Buffalo owns Tampa.
We don't hate Tampa. We aren't crazy about some of your douchey players, but it's a little tongue in cheek. We know we're dying to hate someone 🙂
Perry got Knocked the F**k Out Bwahahahahaha
Brandon Hagel should be suspended. He should have gotten a game misconduct or at least a 10 min. for chasing down Dahlin from behind, punching the back of his head then tackling and pounding his head repeatedly on the ice. He shouldn't have been on the ice for his goal. The Lightning are a dirty team. They were starting fights all night trying to take out the Sabres skill guys like Dahlin. Their problem was too many skill guys to take out. Personally I prefer watching great skating, passing, clean checking and shooting rather than ugly brawls and long interruptions in the game.
You can't bully good teens they will always find a way around it
It was 3 0 then 4 1 not 4 0. That was the last game in Tampa.