In Buffalo, the visiting San Jose Sharks grabbed a 3-0 lead in the first period on Thursday night and then held off the Sabres for a 3-2 win.
Tomas Hertl hit for a goal and two points in the win.
“I thought that ‘Tommy’ showed amazing leadership tonight,” Sharks head coach Bob Boughner said. “And not just because he scored the game-winner. But he was sacrificing, he was blocking shots. His changes, he was making smart offensive zone changes. He was making sure on the bench, holding guys and pumping guys up and positive encouragement to other guys. He was just very part of the game tonight. He was very engaged, both verbally, and with his game.”
Matt Nieto and Timo Meier also struck for the Sharks in the first period.
“It just started from a great forecheck,” Nieto said. “‘Bones’ wins a battle there, gets it to ‘Cogs’ at the net-front and he makes a really good pass to me in the slot. Great heads-up play by him and I was able to squeak one by.”
Adin Hill made 37 saves in the San Jose win.
“It was nice to see a lot of rubber, a lot of shots, get a feel for the puck in the net,” Hill said. “It was good and obviously getting the two points is huge. … Hopefully we can start stringing some together here.”
The Sharks improved to 18-16-1.
The Sabres tried to get back in the game with a second period goal from Jeff Skinner and
“It was not good,” Sabres head coach Don Granato said. “We had some guys that made some mistakes that shouldn’t have been made. So I don’t want to fault the whole team for it. The first goal ‘UPL’ couldn’t see. It was our own guy in the way. The frustration you hear in my voice wasn’t the entire team. It was just some instances they were able to take advantage of.
“And then the rest of the game, obviously I’ve talked a lot this year, you have to be able to overcome your mistakes and you can see why. Every team makes mistakes. We made mistakes and we couldn’t dig ourselves out from those mistakes.”
Buffalo dropped its fifth straight game and fell to 10-18-6.
“I just think we need more urgency, and that’s not really rust, maybe,” Skinner said. “We were sort of waiting for plays to develop and as a result we were kind of on our heels for a bit there.”
The Sabres’ Zemgus Girgensons added a strike in the third to make it 3-2 in favor of the Sharks. scored,
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 18 saves in the Sabres loss.
“It’s tough to take confidence back when you give it up,” Granato said. “We elevated. We competed harder. I really, really pushed our guys at the end of the period. I was disappointed. I didn’t think we were competing hard enough. We had some individual errors, but I wanted to make sure we didn’t dwell on it. … We played with too much fear in the first period, which is hesitation. We needed to get rid of that. We did a better job the second two. All the frustration you hear in my voice is that.”
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