At The Final Horn | Sabres falter in road loss to Blue Jackets

The Buffalo Sabres got off to a slow start and then allowed three goals in the second period to go down for good in their 7-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday at Nationwide Arena.
Mark Pysyk, Tage Thompson and Kyle Okposo scored for the Sabres.
Coming off a hat trick performance on Saturday, Thompson now has 22 points (10+12) in his last 20 games played, including 15 points (8+7) in his last 12. Thompson's goal on Sunday was his 20th of the season.
Craig Anderson stopped 32 of the 38 Blue Jackets shots he faced.
Dean Kukan scored twice for Columbus, and Boone Jenner, Zach Werenski, Brendan Gaunce, Gustav Nyquist and Justin Danforth also scored. J-F Berube, in his first NHL start since April 6, 2018, made 33 saves.
The Sabres went 0-for-1 on the power play, and the penalty kill was 2-for-2.
Buffalo is now 1-4-4 in the second game of back-to-back sets this season.

How it happened

Anderson made two great saves, first on Sean Kuraly and then on Yegor Chinakhov before Kukan potted a rebound to open the scoring 4:47 into the game.

Pysyk tied the game with 4:55 left in the first period when he jumped into the play and scored after a shot attempt by Victor Olofsson went off a Columbus defender and right onto his stick. It was just Buffalo's second shot on goal.
Buffalo took the lead with 2:46 left on Thompson's wrist shot from the top of the left faceoff circle. Alex Tuch intercepted a pass and fed Thompson.
Tuch has now recorded nine points (3+6) in his last seven games. Since making his Sabres debut on December 29, he has recorded 21 points (7+14) in 19 games, including 17 points (6+11) in his last 14 contests.
The Blue Jackets tied things up immediately when Jenner scored nine seconds later.
Buffalo was outshot 19-8 heading into the first intermission.
Kukan got his second of the night 3:28 into the middle frame when his point shot found its way in past Anderson.
Patrik Laine thought he extended Columbus' lead to two with a wrist shot top shelf 56 seconds later, but Buffalo challenged the play for offside. Upon review, officials determined that Jakub Voracek had entered the zone before the puck, negating the goal.
Werenski officially made it 4-2 at the 8:16 mark of the second when he beat Anderson with a shot from the left wing.
With 2:17 remaining, Laine sprung Gaunce for a breakaway and he finished to put Columbus up 5-2.

A shot by Okposo in tight made its way in past Berube with 32.0 seconds to go in the second. However, it was not ruled a goal until the officials went to video replay to determine that the puck had crossed the goal line before any stoppage of play to make it a 5-3 game.
After two periods, shots were 31-18 in favor of Columbus, who also held a 46-34 edge in shot attempts.
The Sabres made a strong push in the final two minutes after pulling Anderson in favor of the extra attacker. They outshot Columbus 18-8 in the third period.
However, Nyquist scored on an empty net with 35.9 seconds left to put the game away.
Then with 3.1 seconds remaining, Danforth added another one on Anderson.

Roll the highlight film

Thompson hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career. Here's how it happened:

Worthy of a mention

Rasmus Dahlin did not play due to a lower-body injury sustained Saturday afternoon against Colorado. Before the game, Sabres head coach Don Granato said that Dahlin would be evaluated further, but he did not anticipate the All-Star defenseman to miss much time.

Coming up

Buffalo will head home and return to practice on Tuesday before going back on the road. They'll open a three-game road trip Wednesday night in Montreal.
Faceoff from Bell Centre is set for 7:30 p.m. Pregame coverage on MSG starts at 7 p.m.