At The Final Horn: Penguins 3 - Sabres 2

The Buffalo Sabres battled to the end, but Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry stayed strong until the end.
Buffalo's comeback efforts fell short in a 3-2 loss at KeyBank Center on Saturday. Jarry made 28 saves to earn the victory.
Tage Thompson and Casey Mittelstadt scored for Buffalo. Dustin Tokarski made 38 saves in net.
Jared McCann, Evan Rodrigues and Bryan Rust were Pittsburgh's goal scorers.
Buffalo went 1-for-1 on the power play and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill.

What happened

Right after Tokarski steered a shot into the corner, McCann fired it back toward the net from behind the goal line, were it leaked in shortside to put Pittsburgh ahead 1-0 with 9:30 remaining in the first period.
Rodrigues gave the Penguins a 2-0 lead when, waiting in the slot, he one-timed a behind-the-net pass from Teddy Blueger at the 5:57 mark of the second period.
Thompson made it a one-goal game with his tally 44 seconds later. After his first attempt was blocked, he tracked the puck down and beat Jarry for his sixth goal of the season.
Sidney Crosby set up Rust for a power-play goal with 7:45 remaining in the second to make it 3-1.
Mittelstadt scored with the man advantage with 8:16 left in regulation to put Buffalo back within one. He one-timed a feed from Rasmus Ristolainen shortly after Victor Olofsson rang a great chance off the post.

Roll the highlight film

Here's Mittelstadt's power-play goal:

Worth mentioning

-The Sabres and Penguins co-hosted the NHL's first-ever joint Pride Game on Saturday with the goal of bringing together two cities to celebrate LGBTQ+ communities by sharing stories of inclusion, hope and allyship.

Players from both teams taped their sticks for pregame warmups with rainbow tape and took the ice wearing commemorative pride warmup jerseys featuring the Progress Pride Flag. Official Pride Game warmup pucks with a distinct colorful design were used by both teams in pregame warmups.

The Penguins and Sabres are also co-hosting a seven-day online auction featuring pride tape sticks, commemorative warmup jerseys and pucks, various signed items from both teams and more. The auction is now live and runs through April 24 at 12 p.m. To view the pride auction, click here.
In Buffalo, fundraising efforts will benefit Pride Center of Western New York (Pride Center WNY) and GLYS. Pride Center WNY is a health promotion organization specializing in LGBTQ+ health and HIV prevention.
The Sabres and Penguins will donate 100 tickets for the game to LGBTQ+ organizations and each fan in attendance will receive a Pride Game rally towel on their seat.
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus sang the anthems before the game.

Watch: Youtube Video
You Can Play hosted a panel discussion focused on hockey from the perspective of LGBTQ+ participants with ties to Buffalo and Pittsburgh. The discussion was hosted by Jonas Worth from You Can Play and the panel featured Buffalo referee Alex Valvo, Pittsburgh Tigers manager Adam Knoerzer and NHL player agent Bayne Pettinger.
-Before the game, the Sabres announced that alternate captain Kyle Okposo would miss the remainder of the season after undergoing successful surgery on a broken bone in his cheek. Linus Ullmark is also week-to-week with a lower-body injury and his season is also in jeopardy.
Buffalo's injury list also includes forwards Jack Eichel, Riley Sheahan and Zemgus Girgensons, defensemen Jake McCabe and Will Borgen, and goaltender Carter Hutton.
-With the loss, the Sabres were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

Coming up

The two teams will meet again at 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon at KeyBank Center. Catch the action on MSG and WGR 550. Pregame coverage on MSG begins at 2:30.