In Buffalo, the Sabres seem to have straightened out some of their issues, for now, and have put together a string of successes. On Thursday night, the Sabres defeated the Nashville Predators, 4-3.
Jack Eichel struck for his 21st and 22nd goals of the season in the win.
“Obviously, when you get on a run like this and the team’s playing well, you’re just really trying to do the little things every night. It’s rewarding,” Eichel said. “You try and take care of your end and try and be responsible and not do too much, I think good things happen. I’ve been fortunate. I’ve gotten some good bounces, I’ve had some good breaks lately, and our team’s been playing really well, so you put those things together, I’m the beneficiary of a lot of really good hockey plays out there and just trying to keep it going. Obviously, you find confidence when you go through a streak like this and it’s no different for me.”
Linus Ullmark made 36 saves to get the win.
“Coming off the St. Louis game (5-2 win on Tuesday), where it was one of the biggest lessons for us in how to manage a game, we were in a similar time frame again against an outstanding hockey team,” Sabres head coach Ralph Krueger said. “Nashville never gave up, never stopped pushing. They’re just so dangerous offensively. I thought the guys did an excellent job at defending down the stretch. There was pressure on us right through, but we battled hard, really hard.”
Matt Duchene, Colton Sissons and Ryan Johansen were the Nashville strikers.
“We’ve definitely been taking strides to be a consistent winning club again, so taking a step back tonight is frustrating,” Johansen said.
The Predators dropped to 14-11-5.
“I thought we turned the puck over too much in the first period even though we had the lead a couple times. We just turned it over too much,” Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said. “We straightened that out. I thought in the third period we came out with all the right intentions. We could’ve scored in the first shift. We knew it was going to be a tight period. It was a matter of who could get the goal, who could get the chance, who could eliminate a mistake. We made a mistake and they capitalized on it and they got the winner.”
Jimmy Vesey and Victor Olofsson also scored for Buffalo.
[WATCH: All Predators vs. Sabres Highlights]
Juuse Saros made 28 saves in the loss.
“I thought it was back and forth the whole game,” Laviolette said. “They had their looks and chances. … We had a couple of really long shifts there in the second period. I thought that we had some shifts to open up the game in the third period. I thought we could’ve scored one or two goals and it didn’t bounce for us. It was a close game. It was up for grabs going into the third period and they got the goal.”
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