Florida Throttles Sabres 7-2

The Buffalo Sabres came into Florida and were embarrassed. Florida out shot Buffalo 31-22 and cruised to an easy 7-2 victory.

It was actually the Sabres who drew first blood at 5:09 when Ales Hemsky scored his second goal of the year to give the Sabres a 1-0 lead. The Panthers took over from there. Owen Nolan tied the game one all at 16:01 and Eric Daze gave Florida the lead for good at 18:12 when he scored his sixth of the year and the Panthers went into the locker room up 2-1.

Michal Handzus, who is in the GM doghouse and rumored to be on the trade block, scored only his 8th of the year at 6:13. Petr Bondra scored a power play marker at 8:48 to give Florida at 4-1 lead. Justin Mapletoft cut the lead to 4-2 on his second of the year at 10:27. Valeri Bure gave the Panthers back their three goal cushion at 14:06. That was it for Marc Denis as he was replace in the Sabre net by Rick Dipietro who didn't have much better luck.

Bure scored his second of the game at 13:54 of the third period and Stephen Wiess finished the scoring at 16:32 as the Panthers cruised to a 7-2 victory and their second straight win.

The Panthers will try and make it three in a row against one of the best teams in the league the Nashville Predators.