Sabres continue their late season charge in 4-0 shut out of the Islanders Luukkonen makes 21 saves for shutout

In Buffalo, the Sabres’ Zach Benson hit for a double on Thursday night in a 4-0 shutout of the visiting New York Islanders.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 21 saves in the shutout.

“It means a lot,” Luukkonen said. “Kind of finding my footing in the net and kind of proving to myself, too, that I’m an NHL-caliber goalie and I can handle the starts. And also, overall, just how well we play as a team. I always say it feels good to play on this team, play with these guys. I’ve known a lot of them a long time now, so it means a lot to me that we kind of get the success kind of on these games we deserve.”

The Sabres improved to 32-30-5 off their eighth win in 12 games.

“I think we’re starting to find our game, our full 60,” Buffalo’s Dylan Cozens said. “And I think we have confidence. We know we can beat any team. We know that every game matters a lot right now, and we’re kind of buckling down and doing whatever it takes.”

After a scoreless opening stanza, the Sabres hit for three goals in the middle frame.

Victor Olofsson staked the Sabres to a 1-0 lead off a power play strike at 4:28, scoring from the below  the right circle.

Cozens pushed the lead to 2-0 at 8:15, hitting from the left side.

Benson added his first of the night at 9:41, scoring off a shot from just inside the blueline for a 3-0 lead headed to the third period.

The goal was challenged for offsides, but held on review.

“My mindset coming in every game is just compete,” Benson said. “Once you compete your skill takes over. You know, I thought as a line me, [Cozens] and [Jordan Greenway] have kind of been doing that the last couple games. And you know, we’ve just got to keep going here.”

The Islanders dropped to 29-22-14 off their second straight shut out loss.

“We didn’t have a good one tonight, that’s for sure,” New York coach Patrick Roy said. “We had a few moments where if we connected we could have had generated more offense, and we did not. It was not a good performance by us. … I thought we were flat tonight. We didn’t play a good game.”

Benson collected his double at 15:06, hitting an empty net for the 4-0 final count on the scoreboard.

Ilya Sorokin made 33 saves in the loss.

“They obviously came out hard,” New York’s Bo Horvat said. “Got to hand it to them, they played a good game and took it to us right off the hop. [Sorokin] was unbelievable tonight. (It) could have been a lot worse. We’ve got to be a lot better than that if we’re going to win hockey games.”