Chad Johnson has stopped 78 of 82 shots faced in his last three road games (.951), and has earned wins in each of them. He made 21 saves on Wednesday to improve his record to 6-10-3.
While the Lightning were without the NHL's leading scorer Nikita Kucherov due to injury, the Sabres still held their other top players like Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, Victor Hedman and Tyler Johnson off the scoresheet.
The Sabres entered the first intermission down 1-0 after Cory Conacher scored with 1:57 left in the first period. The play was set up by Yanni Gourde, who sent a pass from the halfwall to the point. There, Dan Girardi stepped in over the blue line and rocketed a shot towards the net. Conacher tipped it up into Johnson and then knocked in his own rebound.
"The team's playing really well in front of me and I think that's why you're seeing the results. We're not giving up 2-on-1s, 3-on-2s," Johnson said. "They're not getting really great Grade As all the time or more than maybe one or two a game."
That's not to say there weren't moments of real excitement. Midway through the second period, the goaltenders took centerstage.
First, Johnson made two great saves in tight on Adam Erne. Then the Sabres generated some great chances of their own, first with a Scott Wilson shot that landed just behind Andrei Vasilevskiy but in front of the goal line. Then another opportunity from Evan Rodrigues went off the crossbar as Vasilevskiy, who finished with 32 saves, made an athletic move across the crease in attempt to get a piece of it.
Johnson capped off the sequence by forcing Brayden Point to miss on a partial breakaway as he was chased by Nathan Beaulieu.