UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Penguins' lineup for their exhibition opener against the Sabres this evening looked like something you might see, in well, an exhibition opener.
Which is to say, lots of guys who won't see an NHL game this season unless they have cable TV.
And which means it had very little in common with the group Buffalo brought to Pegula Arena.
The Penguins gave Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Matt Murray -- and most of the other guys who will be on the roster when the regular season opens Oct. 3 -- the evening off. Buffalo, conversely, loaded its lineup with headliners such as Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner, along with the likes of Rasmus Dahlin, Jimmy Vesey, Conor Sheary and Marco Scandella.
NHL regulations require teams to dress at least eight players who qualify as NHL veterans for exhibition games, and the Penguins complied. Barely. Buffalo, meanwhile, came closer to having eight NHL-caliber players on the ice at all times.
And for the first two periods of what became a 5-4 Buffalo overtime victory, it showed.
The Sabres built a 4-1 lead in the first 36 minutes and held a 37-9 advantage in shots at the second intermission. All of which seemed perfectly reasonable given the disparity in talent and experience each team dressed. (The best reflection of that might have been the Sabres' 18-2 edge in shots during the first 20 minutes.)
But a lot transpired between the first minute of the third period, when Sam Lafferty scored to lift the Penguins within two goals, and the 4:52 mark of overtime, when Jack Eichel rifled a shot past Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry to give the Sabres the victory.
And most of it was encouraging for the Penguins, who not only forced overtime but had a few chances to win during the extra period.
"Our guys battled hard," Mike Sullivan said. "I was really happy for them in the third period. We got a lot of juice. We scored a couple of goals. You could see the excitement on the bench. I was really pleased with the fight. I thought our guys played pretty hard against a real strong lineup."
Now, nobody did anything during those final 20-plus minutes, let alone the 40 before them, to bull his way onto the major-league roster. But a lot of guys who will be back in junior hockey or the minors before long learned that they're capable of competing effectively against NHL-caliber opponents.
"We could have fought even better if we started a little more fearless from the beginning," Dominik Simon said. "Because we could play with them."
Not that it showed for most of the first two periods, when the Sabres operated at will all over the ice.
"We had a lot of guys who hadn't played in an exhibition game, a lot of new guys who were just getting the hang of it, getting a feel for it," Jarry said. "By the end of it, we played a good team game."
• Andrew Agozzino, Adam Johnson, and Ryan Haggerty also scored for the Penguins, while John Gilmour, Henry Jokiharju, Tage Thompson and Sheary got the other Buffalo goals.
• Simon played between Zach Aston-Reese and Bryan Rust, and got a positive review for his effort from Sullivan. "I liked him (at center)," Sullivan said. "He's such a smart player. He distributes the puck well. He's good at both ends of the rink. We can spend some time with him on the faceoffs (Simon won nine of 24). We've already got Matt Cullen on that."
• Both teams switched goalies in the middle of the second period. Casey DeSmith stopped 23 of 25 shots before being replaced by Jarry, who finished with 19 saves on 22 shots. Buffalo's Carter Hutton faced just three shots, rejecting two, and his replacement, Jonas Johansson, turned aside 12 of 15.
• The Penguins' power play was 0-for-3, did not record a shot, and allowed a shorthanded goal. The Sabres were 1-for-4 with the extra man, and had seven shots when the Penguins were shorthanded. Sullivan paired Rust with Teddy Blueger and Simon with Aston-Reese on penalty-killing tandems, but said that was mostly because of the makeup of this particular roster, as opposed to being an experiment that could be repeated during the regular season. Simon said he killed penalties while playing in his native Czech Republic.
• Sullivan said Lafferty "is in the conversation right now for (a spot on) this roster. ... His body of work in Wilkes-Barre has been really strong and that's certainly something we've taken into consideration."
• Sheary, a former Penguin, was on the ice for four Buffalo goals and none by the Penguins.
• Blueger was outstanding on faceoffs, winning 15 of 19. Adam Johnson (1-0) was the only other Penguins player to finish above .500 on draws.
• Although there was a decidedly pro-Penguins crowd, this was a Sabres home game. The best evidence of that: O Canada was performed before the game, along with the Star-Spangled Banner. That's standard procedure in Buffalo, which draws a significant number of fans from across the border in Ontario.
• At the start of each period, the crowd broke into a "Thank you, Terry" chant. Sabres owner Terry Pegula funded the start of the Penn State hockey program.
• The Penguins had a 21-man roster. Defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph was the scratch after participating in pregame warmups.
