Carolina edges Sabres it OT, 3-2 Necas scores in OT for win

In Raleigh, the Hurricanes needed a goal from Martin Necas  with 90 seconds gone in extra time on Tuesday night to edge the Buffalo Sabres, 3-2.“It’s a bunch of criss-crosses with the puck,” Necas said. “They were tired out there. Every time you see that, I feel like you don’t want to shoot the puck. You want to create more and more until they get real tired and something on the back door opens up just like what happened.”

Antti Raanta made 20 saves in the win.

“(It was) a rolling puck; there’s always excuses you can make. I can do a little bit better there,” Raanta said. “Other than that, I felt my movement was good, tracking the puck and a couple diving saves.”

Carolina improved to 8-5-0.

“We didn’t give up a ton, we just missed a lot,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I liked our game. We stuck with it and got the result.”

Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin  scored midway through the third period to tie the game, 2-2, collecting his own rebound to force the extra session.

Carolina grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first stanza on a power play marker from Tony DeAngelo at 12:43.

The Sabres dropped to 6-6-1.

“I thought Luukkonen was real good,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “I thought we cleared out a lot again. Shot selection was easier for him to read. They know they can play better. There were plenty of good things, and also plenty of things that we can make adjustments on.”

Buffalo tied it in the middle frame when Alex Tuch at 3:51.

At 7:54 of the third, Brady Skjei  put the Canes up, 2-1, setting up Dahlin’s power play goal to tie.

“I thought we did a good job of shutting them down,” Skjei said. “Obviously, we didn’t capitalize on all our chances, but when it counted, we beared down.”

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 24 saves in the Sabres loss.

“It wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but I think we locked it down defensively to get the one point at least,” Luukkonen said. “We didn’t give them much. A couple times, when they got the puck rolling in the zone, that’s when they’re most dangerous. That’s at least a positive.”