Sabres rattle Canadiens, 4-1

In Montreal, Jeff Skinner hit for four goals in a 5-3 win for the Sabres over the Canadiens in a Sunday matinee.

“Anytime you contribute to the team’s success, it’s a good feeling,” Skinner said. “That’s why you play the game.”

Craig Anderson made 29 saves in the Sabres win.

Buffalo improved to 15-24-8.

“[Skinner]’s deserved more goals than he has this year, which is awesome,” Sabres head coach Don Granato said. “He’s starting to score, he’s got his scoring touch back, he’s got his confidence back. He actually has earned the right for more multigoal games that he hasn’t been rewarded for because he’s been around the net so much.”

The Canadiens dropped to 8-33-7, and are 0-3-0 under new coach Martin St Louis.

“He’s been bringing new ideas, I’m not going to name them, but I think we’ve been doing a good job of trying to apply it,” Montreal’s Nick Suzuki said. “… As a team we’ve been better, we’ve worked hard, just the results haven’t been there.”

Mike Hoffman, Jeff Petry, and Joel Armia scored for the Canadiens.

“They’re a pretty skilled group and they transition pretty quick,” Skinner said. “I mean any sort of little opportunity you give them they can come down and create an opportunity, and I think that’s what was happening in the second period there for a bit and maybe sort of the last parts of the first period.”

Tage Thompson added a single marker for the Sabres.

“We’ve been watching the last couple of games, they have more jump, more energy and more life,” Granato said. “So we knew we had to be ready for it. Obviously, we were at the outset. They elevated in the second period and it took us the buzzer to get through the second period, really, to regather and have a better third period for us.”

Sam Montembeault made 27 saves in the Habs loss.

“I’m so focused on the things I want to do, not the things they’ve been doing,” St. Louis said. “I don’t have enough data to really know what their bad habits are. I have a little base of information in three or four days. … It’s something I’ve started working on, but I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down with them yet to correct their bad habits.”