The Sabres did a pretty good job hanging in with the Lightning in the opening period. The defense struggled at times with the Bolts speedy forecheck, but didn’t give up anything significant. At the other end of the ice they got some shots through to Andrei Vasilevskiy, but were unable to beat the big goaltender.
The Lightning got on the board in the later part of the period via their top ranked power play. Mikhail Sergachev let a bomb go that was tipped past Robin Lehner by Johan Larsson in front.