RECAP: Florida Panthers 3, Buffalo Sabres 2 (SO)

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers took a 3-2 shootout victory over the Buffalo Sabres without Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart in the lineup.

Anton Lundell scored the lone goal in the shootout while Vitek Vanecek stopped all three shots he faced.

JJ Peterka tied the game with a 5-on-3 power play goal with 7:42 to go. He fired a one-timer with one second remaining on the power play to send it to overtime.

Vanecek stopped 26 of 28 saves in his second win since getting acquired by Florida at last month’s trade deadline. His first win was also against Buffalo — a 21-save shutout on March 8.

Florida now sits in a tie with the Tampa Bay Lightning for second place in the Atlantic Division and home ice for a potential playoff series. Tampa Bay has an extra game-in-hand and has the regulation wins tiebreaker over Florida, so the Panthers would need to finish with more points than the Lightning with two games remaining in their season.

Rasmus Dahlin put Buffalo ahead with 18.8 seconds to go in the first period on a give-and-go play with Jason Zucker on the power play. He sent Zucker on the rush and tapped in a feed from the front of the net after joining him untouched.

Carter Verhaeghe tied the game five minutes into the second period with a quick backhand shot. It marked his second goal in two games after he snapped a 13-game goal drought with an empty-net goal on Tuesday.

Jesse Puljujarvi put the Panthers ahead with 5:13 to go in the second period. He batted in an Uvis Balinskis shot with one hand for his first goal in three games with Florida.

Balinskis registered an assist in his 100th career NHL game. He became the 11th Latvian in NHL history to reach the milestone.

The Panthers will finish up their home slate on Monday night against the New York Rangers before wrapping up the season in Tampa on Tuesday.