Sabres drop seventh straight

In Buffalo, the Sabres lost their seventh straight game on Saturday, 3-2, to the Washington Capitals on skills.

Martin Fehervary spoiled the Sabres’ regulation effort when he tied the game, 2-2, early in the third period, forcing extra time.

“Yeah, I mean big comeback, for sure,” Fehervary said. “Back-to-back games [are] always hard and we stepped up in the third period and we played really good, and it turned up as a win, so I’m really happy, and I think all [the] guys [worked] so hard. We won it as a team.”

TJ Oshie was credited with the deciding skills goal.

Vitek Vanecek made 29 saves in the Washington win.

The Capitals improved to 17-5-6.

“We all knew in the room, we just knew we were getting outplayed,” the Caps’ Connor Sheary said. “We weren’t playing our game, we were turning the puck over leading to their transition and their offense. We knew if we put together a good 20 minutes we would give ourselves a really good chance to win, and when ‘Marty’ scored that goal, I think it really gave us a jump and we didn’t really give them much in the third.”

Will Butcher scored for Buffalo.

The Sabres dropped to 8-15-4.

Buffalo was coming off a tough 2-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Friday night.

“Two nights in a row against two extremely talented hockey teams in New York and the Rangers and obviously Washington,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “Lots of really good things. We had some doubt in our game going into these last two games, and we can’t be influenced by things around us, you’ve got to be in the moment. And I thought our guys were tonight, obviously, now back to back.

“The results, you can be disappointed with the end result. You’re never happy, you’re never content until you’re winning, but we know we’re in the middle of a process. You’ve got to have that effort and that energy, and we did.”

Lars Eller also scored for the Caps in regulation.

After Eller scored in the first period to give the Caps a 1-0 lead, Vinnie Hinostroza hit for a goal on a breakaway to knot it at 1-1.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 40 saves in the Sabres loss.

“You can’t really choose which games you play and I’m happy I was given the chance to go again tonight,” Luukkonen said. “Some say it’s hard for the goalies, but you see the games come really fast and I think we played really well today, so that helped a lot.”