Sabres rattle Coyotes, 5-2 Sabres score three in second to down Coyotes

Posted on by

In Buffalo, the Sabres’ Devon Levi made 21 saves on Monday night in a 5-2 win over th4 visiting Arizona Coyotes.

The Sabres scored three straight goals in the middle frame to take command of the game.

The Sabres moved to 12-14-3,

Kyle Okposo scored at 2:25 of the opening stanza to give the Sabres a 1-0 lead.

“We’re building a game now,” Okposo said. “Now we have a template of how we need to play, how we need to work. And now we can get better from there, I think that’s the mantra, is continue to get better every night and build off that. And it’s not hard to play like that, it’s just a commitment to it. And everybody was committed tonight, and the last few. We have to make sure we have the same commitment moving forward, especially on a tough West Coast swing the next few games.”

The score stayed that way until the Coyotes’ Michael Kesselring hit for his first career NHL  a t 3:01 of the middle frame for a 1-1 tie.

From there, the Sabres went on a three-goal run to take a 4-1 lead.

Eric Robinson  scored from near the crease at 6:14 of the second to give the Sabres a 2-1 advantage.

“It’s been a whirlwind, obviously, but really exciting, and getting to play with ‘Okie’ and ‘Krebsy’ made it easy,” Robinson said. “They’ve been playing hard and straightaway talking to me all night, so that’s made the transition for me a lot easier.”

Buffalo stretched the lead to 3-1 midway through the second on a strike by Peyton Krebs off a pass from Okposo.

JJ Peterka scored at 15:06 to balloon the lead to 4-1 for the Sabres.

The Coyotes dropped to 13-12-2.

“We couldn’t make a play,” Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. “Our execution wasn’t there. 
 Then when you don’t execute, you don’t possess the puck. I think we defended fairly well considering we didn’t have the puck or we couldn’t make a play with the puck.”

Arizona got one back on a shorthanded strike by Michael Carcone  at 12:47 of the third period.

Rasmus Dahlin  potted a marker in an empty with 65 seconds left on the game clock for the 5-2 final count.

Karel Vejmelka made 33 saves in the loss.