Things have been going the Sabres way, and they continued to on Friday night.
The Sabres rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the third period and used a shootout to defeat Dallas by a 3-2 score at the First Niagara Center.
Down by one, the Sabres pulled their goaltender, and it was Derek Roy who found a rebound and buried the tying goal.
In the 5th round of the shootout, Nathan Gerbe backhanded a shot past Lehtonen to put the Sabres up in the shootout. Ryan Miller finished it off by getting a piece of a shot from Michael Ryder and winning the game for Buffalo.
Coming into the game, Dallas were 16-0 when leading after two periods of play. With the loss, the Stars dropped to 0-6-2 in Buffalo and haven’t won a game there since October 7th, 1997.
Kari Lehtonen stopped 30 of 32 shots on the night, made some huge saves, but didn’t get the win. The Sabres had a chance to win it in the dying seconds of overtime, but Lehtonen made a pad save to send the game to a shootout.
Michael Ryder’s power play goal in the first period put the Stars up 1-0.
Tomas Vincour added to the Dallas lead with a goal early in the third period.
However, the Sabres used a power play to break the shutout. Thomas Vanek’s 20th goal of the season cut the Dallas lead in half, giving the Sabres a chance to tie it up, which they did.
The Sabres stole a much needed two points from Dallas, and may have an even bigger challenge on Saturday against Tampa Bay.
Buffalo are now eight points out of the playoffs and 5-0-1 in their past six games.
With the goal, Vanek moved into a tie with Miroslav Satan for 7th most goals in Sabres history with 224.
Cody McCormick left the game with an upper-body injury and did not return.
The Sabres will remain home and host Tampa Bay Saturday night at 7 p.m.