In Chicago, Erik Johnson scored midway through the third period to propel the Buffalo Sabres to a 3-2 win over the Blackhawks on Sunday night.
The goal snapped a 2-2 tie.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 24 saves in the win.
Buffalo moved to 8-9-1.
“I liked the battle and the commit to the end result,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “I felt a lot of guys had some heavy legs. They weren’t skating as well as they would. We complicated some things, but we fought hard all the way, obviously, to the end. I felt Dahlin was a major, major component, both defensively and obviously offensively with a goal and two assists. What a game by him.”
The Sabres grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first stanza when
Rasmus Dahlin potted a marker at 4:53.
We found a way to win,” Dahlin said. “It wasn’t pretty, but we found a way to win. That’s what I take away from this game. We had a lot of chances, actually. It was a lot to learn today, but we found a way to win.”
Dahlin had two assists on the night as well.
“I just told myself to go out there, don’t think and just play off my own instincts and compete,” Dahlin said. “That’s all I can do right now. Sometimes they’re not pretty, but sometimes it works. As long as we win, I’m happy.”
Chicago replied at 3:28 of the middle frame on a strike by Taylor Raddysh for a 1-1 tie.
“It’s frustrating,” Raddysh said of the loss. “There are times where we can dominate, and there’s games like that where I think we should walk out with a win and end up losing and not getting a point out of it. We’ve got to find out a way to put the full 60 minutes together and come out with points and wins at the end of it.”
Chicago dropped to 5-11-0 on their fourth straight loss.
“Yeah, it gets heavy on everybody,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “I didn’t really like our first period. I thought we just didn’t have a lot of energy. With the first shift in the second period, we played like we should have. We played fast, we played physical, and got us some power-play time out of that and I think it got us going a little bit.
“But you know what? We’re going into the third period a lot these days tied, and we don’t come out on top. … There’s lots of young guys, but there’s some really good veteran leaders that are talking and saying the right things for these guys to stay up and stay positive. Because the only way we’re getting out of it is for the group in there themselves to get us out of there by winning one.”
With 11 minutes gone in the second, Jeff Skinner hit off the power play to stake the Sabres to a 2-1 lead.
“I was actually just jumping on the ice,” Johnson said. “The puck squirted out to the weak side. I came down the left side. The guys that were out there, I think it might have been [Casey Mittelstadt] or [Skinner] kept the puck in. It went over to the weak side, I saw some ice, took it and just tried to drive wide and elevate the puck and get it to the net as quick as I could.
“Thankfully it was able to go in. We weren’t at our best tonight. You’re not always going to be at your best, and you’ve got to find a way to win the game. We were able to do that.”
The last lasted eight minutes until Philipp Kurashev scored at 17:28 to send the game to third, tied, 2-2.
Petr Mrazek made 17 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.