Canes trip Sabres in OT

In Buffalo, the annual snows are falling soon and the Sabres are doing the same early season swoon.

On Thursday night, the Petr Mrazek made 29 saves for the visiting Carolina Hurricanes in a 5-4 overtime win.

Dougie Hamilton scored the winner midway through the extra session.

“Happy that off the draw we got the puck and then [Necas] built up really good speed and took it to the net,” Hamilton said. “I was just hoping that he would be able to score there. I saw that he kind of lost it and bumped it to me. I was trying to decide if I should shoot it or not. (I) decided to shoot it and that was it.”

The Sabres are 0-4-2 in their last six.

“We got three power plays in the first half of the game and we weren’t able to capitalize,” Buffalo’s Jeff Skinner said. “We capitalize on one of those and it’s going to take a different complexion. And then I think we did a good job of sort of turning it around and getting the pressure on them and carrying that momentum sort of through the last half of the game.”

The Sabres pushed the game to extra time when Johan Larsson scored with 41 seconds left in regulation.

“We had a good start. We felt good about the first few minutes, but the 1-1 goal really took the energy out of the group and we went flat,” Sabres coach Ralph Krueger said.

Jordan Staal,tAndrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen, and Sebastian Aho also scored for the Canes.

“It felt like you just never knew who was going to get that last goal,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I thought we had a real good game until the last little bit of the second period when they got that one; it was a bad break, really. … All in all, it’s a good two points.”

Skinner, Curtis Lazar and Henri Jokiharju had goals for Buffalo.

“That’s part of my identity, that’s what I try to do,” Lazar said. “If it’s running someone over with a hit or blocking a shot or putting the puck in the net or doing a combination, that’s what I’m going to try to do.”

[WATCH: All Hurricanes vs. Sabres highlights]

Carter Hutton made 24 saves in the loss.

“Quite simply not enough shots,” Krueger said after the game. “We had so much control, we’re looking for the perfect goal. We need to give up that mindset to get our confidence back to be able to make those seam kind of one-timer goals that we’d like to make and get something ugly going.

“We’re disappointed in our special teams today. We’ve spent the last few days working on that and speaking a lot about it. The [penalty kill] and power play need to definitely pick up steam again quickly.”