In Buffalo, Jeff Skinner, Jason Pominville and Johan Larsson scored for the Sabres as they defeated the visiting New York Islanders, 3-1.
“You’ve got to stay patient against a team like that; they sure do,” the Sabres’ Jack Eichel said. “They check well for 60 minutes and they don’t give you a lot of room. They definitely are pretty opportunistic, but I thought Linus did a good job of making the saves tonight and our [defense] did a pretty good job. I thought we just played a good team game. It’s a good win for us at home.”
Linus Ullmark made 24 saves to pick up the win.
“I just drove the net; not that many guys can make that kind of play on their backhand,” Pominville said. “It starts with defending, causing a turnover in the neutral zone and off we go.”
Casey Cizikas scored the Isles’ only goal.
“They did a really good job of frustrating us tonight,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “We got away from our game because of it and we weren’t making plays the first two periods. Credit to them for doing that, but it’s really on us to get back to our roots and get back on track like we’ve been able to do so many times before.”
[WATCH: All Islanders vs. Sabres highlights]
Robin Lehner made 19 saves in the loss.
“We tried to play a different game than we’ve had success with,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “We’re usually a hard-driving, north team and we wanted to play cute, and we don’t play that way. We have success when everybody’s going in the right direction. The third period we did a better job, but obviously we didn’t find the back of the net.”
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