Coming off a very much needed 7-3 win in Anaheim on Wednesday to end a lousy four game losing streak, the Sabres finished off the California road trip beating the Sharks 4-2 in a hard fought game last night.
The Sabres got on the board early, just 3:01 into the game as Dylan Cozens put the puck on net and it slipped past Kahkonen, giving the Sabres a 1-0 lead. The Sharks tied up up though with a tip in from Evgeny Svechnikov on a long shot from Jacob MacDonald with 3:11 remaining in the first. Pretty good first period going into the first intermission tied up at 1-1. Despite getting outshot 14-5 in that period, I though we played good hockey there.
With 13:34 left in the second period, Owen Power got right in front of the net behind the Sharks defense and gave the Sabres the lead back with a nice goal that he slid five hole on Kaapo Kahkonen. San Jose tied the game again with 8:03 left in second with Barabonov cashing in on the rebound from an Erik Karlsson shot. The Sharks outplayed us in that second period and outshot up 14-7 with the Sabres offense struggling to generate chances, but can’t complain with the game tied at this point.
Early in the third period, Peyton Krebs drew a penalty shot on a breakaway chance but wasn’t able to score on it. With 10:08 left in regulation, after some beautiful work getting the puck by Tage Thompson, who passed it over to Jeff Skinner across the crease, Skinner scored on the open net to put the Sabres up 3-2. They iced off the game with Alex Tuch scoring on the empty net with 1:01 left in regulation to go on to win 4-2. The Sabres poured it on in the third period with 17 shots and that gave us the edge to get the win.
Final: Sabres 4, Sharks 2
Solid win for the Sabres in a hard fought game on the road. The Sharks hung in there with us and made it a grind of a game but we ultimately get the win to close out the California road trip with two wins to go 2-1 in these late night games. We ended up getting outshot 35-31 but outplayed the Sharks by an expected goal rate of 3.8-3.23.
Back home on Tuesday night with the Leafs coming to town.
Go Sabres.
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