Eichel hat trick leads Vegas over Sabres, 7-4

In Buffalo, Sabres’ fans waited a long time to see Jack Eichel succeed.

Problem for them was he succeeded for the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night, scoring a hat trick in his return to Buffalo in a 7-4 win for the Knights.

“It’s satisfying,” Eichel said. “It’s satisfying to come in here and win. I think that was the most important thing for our group tonight. They were desperate and they gave us everything we could handle and we found a way to make the plays when we needed to.”

Logan Thompson made 31 saves in the Vegas win.

The Golden Knights improved to 13-2-0.

“Probably the best start in my career that I’ve ever been on,” Golden Knights captain Mark Stone said. “Knock on wood, good health. Great goaltending, our defense has been good. Jack’s kind of leading the way offensively, but if you look down on the board, so many guys chipping in offensively. … So, it was a good game for us and it’s a good start. We’ve got to go home and carry the momentum.”

The Sabres were looking to get healthy and stop a three-game skid, but the loss pushed their record to 7-7-0.

Chandler Stephenson gave the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead in the first period off a power play goal.

Tage Thomson scored the first of his two on the night to tie it, 1-1.

“I think we were a little sloppy at times giving them free offense and they’re a good team,” Thompson said. “They’re going to make you pay. That’s something we’ve got to learn moving forward, managing the puck at both blue lines and making sure we’re not turning it over. It’s the way it goes sometimes. We just have to be a little better.”

In the second period, Phil Kessel put the Knights up, 2-1.gave

Buffalo’s Casey Mittelstadt knotted the game, 2-2, off a power play strike, but Paul Cotter put Vegas back up, 3-2, before the end of the frame.

Vegas scored four times in the third period Eichel’s hat trick.

“It felt good,” Eichel said. “I had a couple of breakaways. … They were obviously on me all night. Yeah, it felt good to get one. It was a big point in the game for our group. It never felt like we were fully in control. Give them a lot of credit; they’re a really good team over there. They make a lot of plays and put a lot of pressure on you defensively. They’ve got some really good players.”

Alex Pietrangelo and Eichel scored for a 5-2 Vegas lead.

Thompson picked up his second of the game for a 5-3 score but Eichel pushed the lead to 6-3, and completed his hat trick.

“We gave them way too much,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “I thought Comrie was great through the early part; the breakaways we gave up were all self-inflicted. He was very good there and there was enough opportunity for us to make it, to do good things. We just didn’t convert, didn’t clean out the sloppiness.”

Rasmus Asplund hit for a goal for the Sabres to make it 6-4, and Eichel finished his hat trick for a 7-4 final. He scored into an empty-net.

“I don’t think we’ve gotten to our identity at any point this year,” Granato said. “These are the situations that guide you toward your identity. We played a little bit better in pace and we generated more, we had more shots and more shot attempts. We scored four, obviously. We had posts, had point-blank chances we missed, so [generating] is not an issue. It is giving too much, too many freebies. That was the challenge. That was the issue tonight, clearly.

“You trade chances with the talent that they have, it works out the way it worked out.”