At The Final Horn: Sabres 4 - Penguins 8

Drake Caggiula scored his first two goals with the team, but the Buffalo Sabres fell 8-4 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in their penultimate game of the season at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday.
Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner also scored for the Sabres. Michael Houser made his third straight start in goal and stopped 26 shots.
Jeff Carter scored four goals for the Penguins, who also received goals from Brian Dumoulin, Jared McCann, Sidney Crosby, and Kasperi Kapanen. Tristan Jarry made 19 saves.

What happened

Carter completed his hat trick by the 4:36 mark of the second period to give the Penguins a 3-2 lead. Caggiula responded with his second of the night just 37 seconds later, taking advantage of a strong net-front presence from rookie Brett Murray and burying a shot from the left of the net.
It was all Penguins from that point on. Dumoulin and McCann scored goals just 59 seconds apart to restore their lead during the second period. Pittsburgh outscored Buffalo 3-1 during the third period, beginning with Carter's fourth goal of the night off a Sabres turnover.
The Penguins finished with a 48-27 edge in shot attempts and an 11-3 advantage in high-danger chances at 5-on-5, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Worth mentioning

• Murray became the seventh player to make his NHL debut for the Sabres this season. He skated 11:10 and tallied one shot.
• Houser grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, about an hour north of Pittsburgh, and moved to the Steel City when he was about 11 years old. He had a suite a family and friends in attendance for his first NHL road game.

Roll the highlight film

Caggiula beat Jarry short side to earn his first goal with the Sabres and open the scoring in the first period:

Coming up

The Sabres conclude the season against the Penguins on Saturday at 3 p.m. Coverage on MSG begins at 2:30.