Tuesday, 4 a.m.
The latest victory by the Tampa Bay Lightning won't win any beauty contests.
The Lightning started slow, and it dug itself a hole that seemed hard to climb out of. It was behind Buffalo by three goals before it ever got rolling.
But the Bolts won their fourth straight game with a 6-4 comeback over the Sabres, sweeping the season series 4-0.
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The Lightning are now third in the Atlantic Division and would quality for the playoffs if the season ended today.
"It was tough," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "No excuse for the start . we tiptoed into the game. Give buffalo credit; they were coming hard.
"We felt like we could come back we were getting some chances. We hit a couple of posts. We felt we had some energy in us. (Mikhail) Sergachev gets in that fight. That gave us a jump."
Alex Killorn scored twice for Tampa Bay and now has 15 goals for the season. But it was a goal by Tyler Johnson -- who also had two assists -- that brought the Lightning to within 4-2 that Cooper especially liked.
Killorn is tied with. Brayden Point for the Lightning team lead. He has 10 goals in his last 14 games.
"We moved things around," Cooper said. We tinkered with the lines a little bit. I thought the big goal was Johnson's, It’s a big difference coming in down one goal instead of two. When you’re one down, you feel you're close."
Also scoring for the Lightning was Ondrej Palat, Kevin Shattenkirk and, on an empty-netter, Anthony Cirelli.
Tampa Bay has now beaten the Sabres seven straight games.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 24 of 28 shots to improve to 17-9-2 on the season. Vasilevskiy has won three straight starts and is 4-0-1 in his last five.
Tampa Bay plays Thursday night in Montreal. The puck is scheduled to drop at 7 p.m.
