Things did not look good for the Buffalo Sabres in last game at home against the NHL’s second worst team and the worst in the Eastern Conference 2004 Stanley Cup Champions the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Buffalo, currently standing at ninth place in the east trailing one point at the eight placed Philadelphia Flyers with eight games remaining for both teams, was down by three goals after two periods 4:1, but managed to get a turnaround in the third as they won the period 6:0 and grabbed all three points.

Thomas Vanek scored three goals in that span to get his 31^st of the season. Others who were most productive are Jason Pominville with four points ( two goals and two assists ), Derek Roy and Drew Stafford both with three assists and Jochen Hecht ( two goals, one assist ) with Paul Gaustad adding two assist.

“I think the fans woke us up as we were leaving the ice,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “We deserved it. That was their way of waking us up.” Lightning star Vincent Lecavalier scored twice in the second period to put his team ahead after fourty minutes.

“We didn’t come out the way we wanted,” Pominville said. ''By far, tonight was the best comeback, given the time of year and how important this game was,'' he added. ''This was the best comeback I've ever been a part of.'' ''Everything just went their way,'' Bolts goalie Karri Ramo said. ''Everything just went in the net.''

 Ramo let six goals on 31 shots, as the Sabres scored a empty netter in the final minute. ''You can write the same story as the last time we were here: Third-period collapse,'' Tampa Bay’s Martin St. Louis said, who had a goal and assist. ''It's a bad feeling.''

Washington Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin's scoring drought came to an end in a very special way last night at home against the Boston Bruins. The eight games with only one scored goal became forgotten very quick, as the Russian forward netted his fourth cereer hat trick allready in the first period, in which the home team destroyed their opponents 6:0. Later, he added two assists to get back to the top of the players' stats chart, as his team crushed the Bruins team, which is known for its good defense 10:2. Other Caps' players who draw the attention were Brooks Laich with two goals, Nicklas Bäckstrom ( 1+3 ), Matt Bradley ( 2+1 ), Matt Cooke ( 1+2 ) and Eric Fehr ( 0+3 ). Ovechkin leads the NHL's scoring table with 52 goals, ten goals ahead of the second placed Atlanta Trashers forward, another Russian Ilya Kovalchuk. He is also at the top of overall points stats with 90 points, two points ahead of Evgeni Malkin, another prove that Russian players dominate this years' edition. Ovechkin had his third career five point game, as the two previous came against Ottawa on December 29th 2007 ( 4+1 ) and against Montreal on January 31st ( 4+1 ).  He also became only the third Capitals player in history to score fifty goals in two seasons. The previous Capsitals players that did it are Dennis Maruk ( 1980-81 and 1981-82 ) and Peter Bondra ( 1995-96 and 1997-1998 ).
''Today everything just went to the net,'' Ovechkin said. ''You are going to score (in) lots of games, and some you (won't). I always tell myself not to think about goals and to just play how I can.''''When you go in an eight-game scoring slump, and you're that good, you're going to start scoring again,'' Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said. ''You just can't hold him back, like you can't hold (Sidney) Crosby back and (Evgeni) Malkin back for any length of time. Those guys are good hockey players.'' ''It's really tough to take,'' Bruins goalie Tim Thomas said. ''It was embarrassing. On the other hand, what's the difference? If you lost 3-2 or you lost like that, we're still in the playoffs as of now. You definitely should learn from it, but you can't get too far down.'' Thomas had to be pulled twice in the game and ended with 17 saves on 24 shots.

The Ottawa Senators, who led the NHL's Eastern Conference for months, lost their lead in yeasterday's game at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the manner, they hadn't awaited. "The whole scenario didn't make any sense," Senators coach John Maddock said.

They lost to their Northeast division rival 0:5, to a team which is still after the win at the last place in division, fourth last in Conferece, trailing six points to the eight placed Philadelphia Flyers. Toronto captain Mats Sundin, who was an object of trade speculations, helped his team with a power-play goal scored in the first period, notching his 26th of the season. In the second period, the Leafs team took the game for them, capitalizing on another three powerplay oportunities, scoring two goals in two of them, and added another two goals to win the period 0:4. Vesa Toskala, third star of the game, saved 31 shots, to get his third shutout of the season and 11th of his career. Darcy Tucker contributed with two goals and an assist as the first star of the game. Matt Stajan with three assists was selected as the second star.
"You know what, we really believe that we have a pretty good hockey club," Tucker said. "A lot of other people have been putting us down, and we went in a stretch where we didn't play well, but we got a chance to redeem ourselves and we're trying to do that."

"I don't care how they played," Leafs defenseman Brian McCabe said. "We've got a little something going here and it's nice to see. How about a little credit for the way we played? We seem to always be top-five in man games lost so that doesn't help us at all. It's nice to have a healthy team now going forward and this is the real Maple Leafs team."

The Leafs killed all four power-play advantages and secured that Sundin's goal remained as the game winner.
"I thought we built off our penalty kill more than anything," Tucker said. "I think that we did some good stuff there and got some opportunities. Our power play clicked, and it's a specialty teams league for the most part. You've got to play well on your specialty teams."

Evgeni Malkin did not need much time to convince the visiting New York Rangers that he and his teammate Sidney Crosby already are a dangerous tandem in the NHL. The Rangers could not score until 50th minute when their only goal of the game scored Jaromir Jagr, his 13th of the season.

The New Jersey Devils ended their long winning streak in last game losing to the Rangers in overtime securing at least a point, but wanted to start another against the lowly Washington Capitals last night.