In Buffalo, the visiting Philadelphia Flyers scored three times in the first period to help them ease past the Sabres, 5-1, on Friday night.
Scott Laughton opene3d up the Flyers offense with 63 seconds gone in the game for a 1-0 lead.
“I think we’ve been working really hard, pressing forward and creating a lot of chances for ourselves,” Laughton said. “They haven’t been going in, but hopefully, this starts us to get going a little bit and find the back of the net. We’ve got a back-to-back coming up (against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday), so get home, get some rest and get back at it.”
Louie Belpedio struck for his first NHL career just 28 seconds later for a 2-0 advantage to the Flyers.
Travis Konecny scored with 15 minutes gone in the period for a 3-0 lead after the first.
Samuel Ersson made 21 saves in the win.
“It was a tough start for me, and this win kind of gets me back into things,” Ersson said. “I think for me now, I have to build on this and keep moving forward here.”
The Flyers moved to 5-5-1.
In the middle frame, Garnet Hathaway scored at 14:53 to push the lead out to 4-0.
“I just don’t think we played with enough urgency,” Buffalo’s Kyle Okposo said. “We know that team comes out, works, and we have to try to match their work ethic and play with purpose. And I just don’t think we started the game with purpose.”
“The second period was important because they’ve got some really good players and they can score some goals,” Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. “I just don’t think we changed our game positionally when we didn’t have the puck and we checked forward. We tried to stay aggressive with our checking and not back off and be on our heels. I thought we handled ourselves very well in the third period when they scored. The building gets going, they can score some goals when they want to and I just thought we simplified our game, played straight ahead and just kept our composure.”
The Sabres finally got on the board in the third when Henri Jokiharju scored at 2:24 for a 4-1 lead to the Flyers.
The Sabres dropped to 5-6-0.
“I thought there was enough generated to get breaks and the question would be, did you earn the break?” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “We could have scored, but let’s face it, we didn’t play the way we needed to play. It starts with playing faster and more direct, and we were not direct enough and that was the difference in the game.”
Bobby Brink scored off a breakaway at 11:28 of the third for the 5-1 final.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 14 saves in the loss.
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