In Buffalo, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Tristan Jarry made 28 saves in a 3-2 win over the Sabres on Saturday.
The win pushed the Pens’ point streak to five games.
The Sabres continued to be competitive as a club than they were before trading off their “star” players.
“[Jarry] was solid. He made some big saves down the stretch,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think our goaltending tandem (with Casey DeSmith) has been really solid for quite some time now. These guys are making timely saves for us. Today was no different.”
Casey Mittelstadt scored for the Sabres in the third period to make the final minutes far more interesting than the Pens would have wanted.
Tage Thompson also had a marker for Buffalo.
“We didn’t get the result we wanted tonight, but I thought we played a really well-rounded game,” Thompson said. “I think a couple of times we didn’t get the puck in deep and make their [defense] turn, but I thought for the most part we worked really hard. I think that’s the trend we’ve been seeing the last little while now. So it’s good. I think we’ve got to learn from that and keep building.”
The Sabres dropped to 11-26-7.
“It was puck management initially,” Sabres head coach Don Granato said. “We were a little bit messy again, and it was just a process to get into the game for us for whatever reason. It took us a process to get into the game and absolutely part of it was a credit to them. They played hard, they closed ice well, specifically on entry. We complied too much on that. We needed to get pucks behind them a little bit, at least a little bit early to pressure, and we didn’t do that.”
Jared McCann banked a shot off the Sabres goalie for a 1-0 lead, and Evan Rodrigues staked the Pens to a 2-0 lead.
“It may look like it’s a lucky play, but it’s real calculated play,” Sullivan said. “And it’s a heads-up play to try to take advantage of a goalie when he’s in that situation, where he’s got some separation from his post and there’s some light there. He used the goalie himself to bank it off of and put it in the net. So I thought it was a real smart play on Jared’s part.”
After Thompson scored to cut the lead in half, Bryan Rust scored to up the scoreboard to 3-1 before the end of the middle frame.
Dustin Tokarski made 38 saves in the loss.
“We struggled early to get into our rhythm a little bit,” Mittelstadt said. “I thought we got better throughout the game. I think we gave up too much time early. [Tokarski] made some big saves for us. Just a little too late I guess. Obviously, there are some things we can build on and take into next game. Most of all, we need to be ready to go from the start.”
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