There are tough losses and then there is what happened Saturday night in HSBC Arena.

If the Buffalo Sabres are making tee times in mid-April, it's a good bet they'll be

fretting over a devastating 4-3 shootout loss to the lowly Atlanta Thrashers.

It was a game that fell apart so suddenly that the the stunned sellout crowd of 18,690

could barely boo on its way out the door.

The Sabres blew a two-goal lead in the final 6:34 of regulation - with Todd White's tally

with 3.5 seconds left pulling the Thrashers into a 3-3 tie. It came after Jason Pominville

fanned on what would have been a game-clinching clear from the Buffalo zone with the Atlanta

net empty.

Neither team scored in overtime and seven of eight shooters missed in the shootout. Derek

Roy, Tim Connolly, Drew Stafford and Thomas Vanek all drew blanks for Buffalo. Patrick Lalime

made three saves before Atlanta's Brett Sterling, just called up from the minors earlier in

the day, beat him with a deke.

"It's very disappointing," said Lalime, who made 29 saves. "You have the lead in the last

minute and basically give it away. It's sad to see."

It was a loss made even tougher made by all the help the Sabres got out of town. Montreal

and the New York Rangers lost in regulation. Pittsburgh, Florida and Carolina all fell in

shootouts.

But instead of making up ground on everyone, the Sabres remain 10th with 76 points. That's

two behind the Rangers and Panthers, three behind the Hurricanes and four in arrears of the

Habs and Penguins.

The Thrashers are 13th in the East but, like the other Eastern bottom feeders, they have

feasted on Buffalo this year. The Sabres are 0-0-3 against Atlanta this season.

On the tying goal, Pominville had the puck in the corner to Lalime's right but White

appeared to hit Pominville's stick and force him to partially fan on the clearing attempt. The

puck instead slid meekly to Tobias Enstrom, who easily intercepted it and fed Ron Hainsey in

the middle.

Hainsey's shot leaked through Lalime and White tapped it home just ahead of Henrik

Tallinder.

"A guy ends up getting a piece of it, then they end up making a play and scoring a goal,"

Pominville said. "It's a tough break, especially when I thought we had a lot of opportunities

to put them away. We just weren't able to capitalize."

"They didn't have any traffic on the shot and somehow it just snuck behind Patty," said

coach Lindy Ruff. "[Pominville] just fanned on it. Whether the puck rolled or what. We can sit

here and make excuses but there's no use making excuses for it."

Buffalo had 37 shots, with Atlanta goalie Kari Lehtonen stoning the Sabres on several

chances. Pominville had a couple good ones and Lehtonen kept his team alive by stopping Thomas

Vanek on a breakaway with five minutes left.

Things started to fall apart with the Sabres leading, 3-1, and heading for a power play

with 6:54 left. Just 20 seconds later, the puck was in their net as Jaroslav Spacek's shot was

blocked to create a two-on-one break and Marty Reasoner potted Chris Stuart's rebound to give

the visitors hope.

"You've got to get that shot through," Ruff said. "We didn't get it through. We knew it was

important not to shoot through people. We did and we paid a price for it."

The Sabres wiped out a 1-0 deficit with three goals in just over five minutes late in the

second period. Derek Roy set up Daniel Paille for the first and made it 2-1 himself with a

slapshot from near the blueline. Vanek did the dirty work on the third goal, feeding Maxim

Afinogenov for a short shot from in front with 1:36 left in the period.

Atlanta won its fifth straight even though it played without 36-goal scorer Ilya Kovalchuk,

who stayed home with an upper-body injury suffered Thursday in Edmonton. Kovalchuk leads the

league over the last 25 games with 35 points.