The Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres were scoreless until midway through the first period when Drew Stafford converted on a deflected puck, putting it past Dustin Tokarski at 11:31 of the period. After the goal, Tampa Bay appeared flat and allowed Buffalo to get a flurry on shots on Tokarski.
The Sabres outshot the Lightning nine to five, but Tampa Bay did have a few good chances in the first period, including Brandon Segal's slap shot on Ryan Miller earlier in the period. Miller however came up with a big save.
At 11:31, Victor Hedman was called for holding and Buffalo's Jason Pominville took advantage of the power play by scoring on the short side of the net from the bottom of the face off circle. Tokarski should have saved it and it was quite an easy goal to give up.
If Tampa Bay is going to get any points out of this game it needs to tighten up on defense or it will be a long night.