Sabres fall to Panthers in OT to open season-ending road trip

Henri Jokiharju shared the motivating force driving the Buffalo Sabres through their final games of the season in the wake of being eliminated from playoff contention. “Just loving the game,” Jokiharju said. Jokiharju was among a group of Sabres players who gutted out a five-minute penalty kill to force what had been a closely contested game to overtime, but the Florida Panthers came away with a 3-2 victory inside Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday. Aleksander Barkov forced a turnover along the boards and found Sam Reinhart for the winning goal with 1:02 remaining in the extra period.