If you didn’t clear your schedule of the Buffalo Sabres earlier in the season, you are in a for a tough road to hoe moving through the last dozen games in the campaign.
On Tuesday night, Victor Olofsson scored in the third period to snap a 2-2 tie with the Carolina Hurricanes and help send the Sabres to a 4-2 win.
“I feel we’re super confident as a group right now,” Olofsson said. “Even when they scored at 2-2, we just kind of settled down a little bit and just kept it a little bit more simple. I think we turned a lot of pucks over there in the beginning of the third, and then just kept it more simple. Got pucks behind them again, like we did in the second.”
The loss enabled the New York Rangers to climb two points closer to the Canes at the top of the Atlantic Division.
The Sabres improved to 26-34-11.
Craig Anderson made 31 saves in the Buffalo win.
The Sabres are 6-1-3 in their last 10 and causing all sorts of grief for contenders.
Jesper Fast scored for Carolina to give them a 1-0 lead, and Nino Niederreiter had a strike for the Canes to tie the game, 2-2.
“At the end of the day, that game was unacceptable the way we played,” Niederreiter said. “We just never really found our game until the last period. And I mean, at the end of day, there’s no easy win, no easy team to play against, and they play hard. We just took the game for granted and thought was it going to be an easy game, and that sure wasn’t the case.”
Jeff Skinner had a goal for the Sabres to tie the game 1-1 after Fast’s goal.
With a game in hand, the Canes are just two points up on the Rangers after they defeated the New Jersey Devils, 3-1, on Tuesday.
“It’s pretty obvious, pretty self-evident, we played just a terrible second period,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Then you leave it up to chance. We played a good third. We came out hard and did everything. Had a great third, but it’s too late. Leave it up to chance. We got what we deserved there.”
Buffalo’s Dylan Cozens hit off the power play in the 16th minute of the third period for the 4-2 final.
Frederik Andersen made 28 saves in the Carolina loss.
“It’s disappointing just in general,” Brind’Amour said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with anything else. You don’t like to see your team play that way any time. Even though, like I said, there was really good stretches in there, did some really good things, but too much not good enough. And it cost us.”
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