The Sabres finished the first period with a 15-4 lead in shots. Gibson had already turned away breakaway attempts by Thompson and Jordan Greenway before Greenway opened the scoring with a shot from the high slot 9:07 into the contest.
The Ducks answered just 1:03 after Greenway’s goal, when Ross Johnston forced a turnover in the corner of the Buffalo zone and passed in front to Max Jones, who made a no-look extra pass to set up Adam Henrique with a point-blank one-timer.
“We had plenty of opportunities to kind of put them away with offensive chances that we have,” Thompson said. “We score a couple of those it’s a different game and now they’re chasing. Yeah, it’s a tough one.”
Frank Vatrano scored twice to ignite Anaheim’s run during the second period. He won a race to a loose puck in the blue paint for the tying goal after a Mason McTavish one-timer squeezed past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, then buried the go-ahead score on a 2-on-1 pass from McTavish less than three minutes later.
Zach Benson deflected a shot from Henri Jokiharju to even the score again at 3-3, but Troy Terry drove in alone from the side of the net and jammed the winning goal in for Anaheim with 1:04 left in the period.
“We gave up 15 shots, but it just seemed like we just kind of gave them everything that they had,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “And just some sloppy plays where we’re not supporting and we’re looking to go the other way when we just got to take care of our own end, and the puck is in the back of our net. That’s kind of what it was.”
The Sabres outshot the Ducks 10-2 in the third period but were unable to push the tying goal past Gibson, who made a low glove save on a Thompson chance from beside the net and later stopped Rasmus Dahlin from the slot during the final minute.
“We paid for the mistakes we made and … with enough generated from the chance standpoint, didn’t convert,” Granato said.
Here’s more from the loss.
