In San Jose Thursday night, Logan Couture picked up a hat trick in a 5-1 rout of the Buffalo Sabres.
It was the third career NHL hat trick for Couture.
“It took me a long time to get my first one and now two in the last three years,” Couture said. “I’ll take them when they come.”
Evander Kane had two assists against his former club.
“It’s fun,” Kane said. “We needed that win bad coming off a long road trip and blowing a couple of third-period leads. We wanted to make sure we came out strong and lock them down and spend a lot of time in their end. I thought we did a good job of that tonight.”
The, who improved to 3-3-1, also got goals from Joonas Donskoi and Joe Pavelski.
Martin Jones made 24 saves to pick up the win.
Jake McCabe scored to lone goal for the Sabres in the middle frame.
“When special teams are struggling as much as it is and power plays are struggling you’ve got to go back to work and go back to simplicity,” McCabe said. “Look at their power play, it was nothing special, they’re getting pucks to the net and bodies to the net and it creates chaos and it’s tough to defend.”
[WATCH: All Sabres vs. Sharks highlights]
Carter Hutton made 34 saves in the loss and is one more goalie to get no support in Buffalo.
“I think we’re going to evaluate everything. I think we had key times in the game that our power play could’ve shined and we didn’t execute. I think one of the things we have to get back to is just shooting pucks and keeping it simple,” Sabres head coach Phil Housley said after the listless loss.
That evaluation needs to start at the defensive scheme and support for the goaltenders before another decent netminder is chased off.
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