At The Final Horn: Flyers 4 – Sabres 3 (OT)

The Buffalo Sabres held a 3-0 lead heading into the third period Monday, but couldn’t hold on in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers at KeyBank Center. The Sabres are now winless in 18-straight games (0-16-2) and have lost 10 regulation games in a row. They have not won a game since February 23. 

Henri Jokiharju, Cody Eakin and Brandon Montour scored for Buffalo. Linus Ullmark made 32 saves in net. 

Kevin Hayes, Claude Giroux and Sean Couturier scored third period goals to get Philadelphia back in the game and Ivan Provorov ended it in overtime. 

Brian Elliott, who entered the game 3-0-0 with a .967 save percentage and a 0.92 goals-against average against the Sabres this season (and was 16-2-2 with a .943 save percentage and a 1.67 goals-against average), made 29 saves on 32 shots.

Buffalo also lost a third-period lead in their last game on Saturday. 

What happened

The Sabres opened the scoring late in the first period. Curtis Lazar picked the puck out of a scrum along the left halfwall and zipped it across the ice to Jokiharju, who was uncovered. The Sabres defenseman stepped up and shot the puck five-hole for his second goal of the season to put Buffalo head 1-0 with 2:19 left in the opening period. 

Buffalo captured their first two-goal lead since March 9 (also against the Flyers) when Eakin potted his second of the year 2:10 into the second period. From the right faceoff dot, he wristed in a pass from Tobias Rieder. 

The Sabres extended their lead to 3-0 when Montour tallied with 7:17 remaining in the middle frame. Taking a pass from Tage Thompson, he wristed one in from the middle of the slot past Elliott. 

It marked Buffalo’s first three-goal lead since Februart 23 against the Devils, which also marked the team’s last win.  

The Flyers came out strong in the third period and put the pressure on the Sabres. Hayes one-timed a shot from the slot to make it 3-1 at the 1:50 mark of the third. 

With 9:09 left in regulation, Couturier knocked a loose puck over to Giroux, who pounded it into the net to make it 3-2.  

Elliott headed to the bench and Thompson missed an empty net with 1:46 left on the clock. Then with the extra attacker, Couturier scored to tie the game with 1:29 remaining in regulation. 

Travis Konecny set up Provorov 42 seconds into overtime, who put a nice move on Ullmark to bury the game-winning goal.

Roll the highlight film

Let’s take another look at Montour’s goal:

Video: PHI@BUF: Montour buries Thompson’s drop feed

Worth mentioning

Rookie Dylan Cozens played his last shift with 8:09 remaining in the first period after taking a hit into the boards from Philippe Myers. 

Coming up

The homestand continues Wednesday night when the Sabres host the Flyers again at KeyBank Center. Faceoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. on MSG and WGR 550 with pregame coverage starting at 6:30 p.m. on MSG.