Lightning come back to beat Sabres on Jake Guentzel's goal in overtime

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Feb 3, 2026

Published in Hockey

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TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Lightning had a couple of days to come off the high of their comeback win over the Boston Bruins in the Stadium Series before jumping right back into the gauntlet of the Atlantic Division Tuesday night at Benchmark International Arena.

Against a Buffalo team that had been nearly as hot as them — the Sabres entered Tuesday 21-4-1 in their last 26 games — and was nipping at their heels, getting points was critical.

The Lightning were without two key players who were injured Sunday — centers Anthony Cirelli and Nick Paul. Tuesday afternoon brought news that Cirelli’s injury was serious enough to prevent him from playing for Canada in the Olympics.

And there wasn’t the crowd, or the electricity, of 65,000 fans back on home ice Tuesday, but the Lightning still orchestrated some late-game heroics.

Defenseman Darren Raddysh scored his 17th goal of the season during 6-on-5 play with 26 seconds remaining in regulation, rifling a 98 mph slap shot from the center point to bring the crowd to its feet.

And Jake Guentzel was the hero again, scoring a breakaway goal set up by a stretch pass from Nikita Kucherov with 15 seconds left in the five-minute, 3-on-3 overtime.

With the 4-3 win, the Lightning improved to 18-1-1 in their last 20 games. They are 9-4 in overtime.

Buffalo took advantage of a Curtis Douglas holding penalty with 7:05 left in regulation to go ahead 3-2, as Josh Doan tipped in a cross-ice feed with his right skate with 5:07 remaining.

Oliver Bjorkstrand had scored a tying goal on the power play 8:53 into the period (eight of his nine goals this season have been on the power play) when the rebound of a Raddysh slap shot from the center point landed on his stick blade with the right side of the net open.

Buffalo defenseman Mattias Samuelsson scored the first two Sabres goals, including one on the rush 4:08 into the third period that gave Buffalo a 2-1 lead.

Guentzel couldn’t put in a rebound in front at the other end, and the Sabres flew out of the zone. Ryan McLeod found Samuelsson through the middle of the ice, and Samuelsson fired a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy from the high slot.

The Lightning opened the scoring with 9:36 left in the first period, with Kucherov scoring his team-high 29th goal at the end of a relentless shift by a revamped top line with Brandon Hagel and centered by Guentzel.

The Lightning hounded the Sabres as they tried to get the puck out of their end. Guentzel picked off a pass by Rasmus Dahlin and quickly fed Kucherov for a snap shot from below the right circle.

Samuelsson tied the score with his first goal of the game, taking the puck at the blue line and skating down the left wing freely before launching a tight-angled shot from below the left circle.

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