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TAMPA, Fla. — In all likelihood, this exact version of the Buffalo Sabres played its final game on Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Something about this roster will change between now and 3 p.m. on Friday.

It has to, right?

If nothing else, Thursday served as a reminder of how confounding this team can be. On a night when the Sabres scored five goals on Andrei Vasilevskiy and built a 5-3 lead, they found a way to lose 6-5.

The Sabres showed off their offensive skill. Rasmus Dahlin and Alex Tuch both scored off the rush. So did Peyton Krebs. JJ Peterka had a terrific individual effort for a goal. Tage Thompson scored with an overpowering shot on the power play, as he tends to do.

But then the Sabres found a way to make enough mistakes in the defensive zone and failed to get enough out of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who has now allowed 11 goals in his last two starts.

“I think we need a save,” head coach Lindy Ruff said.

Luukkonen finished the game with minus-3.7 goals saved above expected, according to Natural Stat Trick. Three goals against came on low-danger shots. Luukkonen was one of Buffalo’s problems, but he wasn’t the only one.

Ruff decided to put Owen Power and Bowen Byram on a defensive pair together. They were on the ice for three goals against. Power was on the ice for a fourth goal against in the third period after Ruff split up that pair.

Dylan Cozens said the Sabres weren’t strong enough in front of their own net.

“That’s on us as forwards and D-men, whether it’s boxing them out or getting under their sticks so they can’t get their sticks down in front of the net like that,” he said.

Dahlin summed up the loss as “too many soft plays.”

Even with all that went wrong, the Sabres had a chance to tie the game late in the third period. With 1:54 left, they went on a power play and pulled the goalie to get a two-man advantage. With less than a minute left in the game, the Lightning took another penalty. The Sabres thought a Lightning player had touched it, but the whistle didn’t blow, so the Sabres wasted about 10 seconds of game clock. They still got multiple shots off during the abbreviated six-on-three, but both were blocked, and the Lightning closed out the win.

This is now the second winless streak of at least five games this season. And it’s the eighth winless streak of at least five games during Kevyn Adams’ five seasons as general manager.

The roster heading into the trade deadline is the same one the team took to Prague to open the season. The Sabres extended Jordan Greenway’s contract on Wednesday, but otherwise, their trade deadline has been quiet.

The Sabres are traveling with a big crew for this road trip. Associate general manager Jason Karmanos, assistant general managers Mark Jakubowski and Jerry Forton, vice president of hockey strategy and research Sam Ventura and director of pro scouting Jeremiah Crowe were all at the game on Thursday. Owner Terry Pegula lives not far from where the team will be staying in Fort Lauderdale, where it will conduct trade-deadline business. That’s a lot of personnel on hand to figure out how to fix a team that is going to miss the playoffs for a 14th straight season, extending a league record.

During the game, ESPN broadcast color analyst Ray Ferraro didn’t mince words when talking about the Eastern Conference’s last-place team.

“They’re the youngest team in the league again this year,” Ferraro said. “Last year, their American League team was older than their NHL team. So, like, eventually, how long do you wait for this core? Can you keep waiting? It’s 14 years now. Don’t you have to at some point go, ‘We need to take a little bit of a swing here?’”

We’ll see if that swing comes Friday. Regardless, the real business of changing this team shouldn’t be done by the deadline. There’s a lot that needs fixing from the top down, and it extends beyond the roster. Pegula will get an up-close look this week.

Quick hits

1. At least twice, Dahlin was involved in scrums after the whistle. In both instances, it felt like he was mostly on his own. This first came when he took a jab from Erik Cernak. Cozens was slow to skate into the play.

Later in the game, the Lightning initiated another scuffle in front of Buffalo’s net. Anthony Cirelli threw a couple of punches at Dahlin. Dahlin swung back. They got matching roughing penalties, but Dahlin got an extra two minutes because he knocked Cirelli’s helmet off.

“I don’t know how you end up with the extra,” Ruff said after the game. “Come on. A scrum like that, you should be even. I’m not buying into the extra penalty. He kind of took the first one off the start, and then he took two or three punches to the head. What do you want him to do? I want him to do exactly what he did: punch him back.”

Dahlin didn’t have a lot of help in that scrum, either. Mattias Samuelsson and Greenway jumped in to defend him, but Cozens again was slow to react. Asked if the Sabres did a good enough job matching the Lightning’s energy in those post-whistle scrums, Cozens said, “Yeah, I don’t really know. I thought so. It seems we always get a penalty in those scrums, so I think we always have guys in there.”

2. Peterka scored his 19th goal of the season Thursday, and it was a dandy. He stripped the puck from Nikita Kucherov in the offensive zone and then beat Andrei Vasilevskiy high glove side. With the goal, Peterka now has 51 points, surpassing his total from last season (50). That’s made him a buzzy name in trade rumors, because he’s a restricted free agent this summer.

A few reports suggested the Rangers were trying to trade for Peterka, but The Athletic’s Arthur Staple reported the Rangers are not in on Peterka. His situation will be one to monitor Friday and potentially beyond.

3. Jack Quinn and Greenway had to leave this game because of illness. Quinn started feeling it before the game but thought he could play. He ended up vomiting on the bench. Greenway left shortly after with the same illness. Jason Zucker was already out, so the Sabres could end up needing some reinforcements from Rochester before they play the Panthers on Saturday.