At The Final Horn: Sabres 2 - Islanders 5

The Buffalo Sabres opened their first of three games in a row on Long Island with a 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Thursday.
Taylor Hall and Rasmus Ristolainen scored for Buffalo at Nassau Coliseum, but the Sabres were unable to come back from deficits of 2-0 and 4-1. Jonas Johansson started in net and made a career-high 40 saves.
Matt Martin tallied twice, and Noah Dobson, Anthony Beaullivier and Jordan Eberle were the Islanders' other goal scorers. Ilya Sorokin stopped 16 shots.
All seven goals in the game were technically scored at even strength even though Buffalo's second goal came on a delayed penalty and the Sabres pulled Johansson during the sequence. Buffalo did not have a power-play opportunity in the game and the team's penalty kill was a perfect 3-for-3.
New York leads the eight-game season series 4-0-0.

What happened

The Islanders broke out and scored on the rush with 9:35 remaining in the first period when Dobson jumped in and beat Johansson with a quick wrist shot.
Standing behind the Sabres goal line, Martin made it 2-0 when he fired one top shelf on the short side up over Johansson's shoulder with 3:39 left in the first.
Hall scored to put Buffalo on the board at the 3:08 mark of the second period. Cody Eakin collected a turnover in the neutral zone and threw a shot on Sorokin. The rebound off the left pad came out to a driving Hall, who buried it.
Beauvillier raced in behind the Sabres defense and he scored to give the Islanders a 3-1 lead with 5:02 remaining in the second period.
Eberle scored on a rebound off an Anders Lee shot to put New York ahead by three 3:14 into the final frame.

Ristolainen jumped up into the play and scored while parked in front of the net on a delayed penalty while playing 4-on-4 at the 7:23 mark of the third to make it a 4-2 game.
Martin scored his second of the game when he crashed the net and banged the puck in with 5:32 left

Roll the highlight film

Let's look at Ristolainen in front for his goal:

Worth mentioning

Hall's goal was his second of the year and his first since the season opener on January 14. The goal snapped Sorokin's shutout streak at 143:08. It marked the third-longest stretch by a rookie netminder in Islanders history, according to @PR\_NHL.
Tonight's matchup marked the first time the Sabres will play a team three straight times in the same regular season in franchise history, according to @SabresPR.
Buffalo previously played the same opponent in three straight regular-season games on four occasions by wrapping up one season and beginning the next against the same team: Montreal (1987-88 and 1988-89), Quebec (1981-82 and 1982-83; 1991-92 and 1992-93) and Washington (2019-20 and 2020-21).

Coming up

What's coming up? Two more games against the New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum. After a practice day on Friday, the Sabres and Isles will go at it again on Saturday at 1 p.m. (TV: MSG; Radio: WGR 550; Pregame: 12:30 p.m. on MSG) and Sunday at noon (TV: NBC; Radio: WGR 550).
Stay tuned to Sabres.com, the team's social media outlets and the new Sabres app for the latest news.