In Washington, DC, Vitek Vanecek made 22 saves to lead the Capitals to a 3-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night.
“He’s given us an opportunity to win hockey games from the start of the year,” Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette said. “But I think what we were trying to do was put a better game in front of him. It’s been a little bit better the last couple of games. But he’s given us a chance. He did a good job tonight.”
Victor Oloffson was the lone scorer for the Sabres.
“It’s a tough situation we’re in right now,” Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger said. “This is now psychology. This now persistence and character that we need to have to stick with it. Structurally, again we liked the effort, the neutralizing of Washington in a lot of phases of the game, but there’s not enough up front for us to get away with winning games if we score one goal or no goals.”
The Sabres have lost four straight.
“Everyone is obviously frustrated,” Olofsson said. “We want to win and we’re battling right now. We’re working very hard and we want to do the right things. I think the atmosphere and the mood in the locker room is still good before and during games.”
Nicklas Backstrom and Conor Sheary were the Caps’ strikers.
“I like everything about his game right now. He is working really hard,” Laviolette said. “If you work really hard on the ice good things will happen for you and that’s an example of what he’s doing.”
Tom Wilson also scored for the Caps.
“[Dowd] was screaming at me, ‘No! No! No!’ He wanted me to take it to the net and I was lucky to put it in,” Wilson said. “But he made it very clear that he didn’t want to be part of that two-on-none. That was kind of funny.”
Linus Ullmark made 18 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.