Sabres stride out of last place on winning road trip
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — For the first time in months, the Sabres are not the least in the East.
Tuesday night's 5-2 victory in Ottawa, the second on a three-game trip for the Sabres and seventh win in the past 10 games elevated Buffalo into 14th in the Eastern Conference with 70 standings points. The Sabres passed the Boston Bruins, who extended their winless skid to nine games with a 4-3 loss in Washington.
The Sabres dropped into last place in December during their 13-game winless streak. Moving up with better play in the spring, Buffalo remains nine points out of the wild-card race with eight games remaining. Ottawa leads the wild card race with 84 points, and Montreal currently holds the eighth playoff spot with 79 points.
Closing out the road trip before back-to-back games at KeyBank Center this weekend, Alex Tuch and Rasmus Dahlin scored in the first period and added assists, Tage Thompson tallied his 39th goal, and James Reimer made 33 saves in winning his fourth straight start for the Sabres. Peyton Krebs and Ryan McLeod also scored, while defenseman Mattias Samuelsson had two assists and a plus-4 rating.
Buffalo outscored the Senators 17-5 in their four meetings this season.
The Senators were without captain Brady Tkachuk, who is sidelined with an upper-body injury from a hit by Ryan Graves in Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh. This marks only the fourth game Tkachuk has missed in the past three years.
The Sabres jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first scoring twice on five shots.
Linus Ullmark made a save on Samuelsson but lost sight of the rebound, providing Tuch with an easy tap in.
Just over three minutes later Jack Quinn found Dahlin who scored from the point.
Buffalo made it 3-0 midway through the second with some impressive play from Thompson, who came through the slot, dished it to JJ Peterka and buried the return pass.
Ottawa made it 3-1 with Tyler Kleven finding Claude Giroux in the slot for his 15th of the season.
The Sabres took a 4-1 lead in the third when Krebs intercepted a Dylan Cozens pass and broke in alone on Ullmark, who made 17 saves, and beat him high glove.
The Senators managed to cut the lead in half 23 seconds later on Jake Sanderson’s ninth of the season, but a short-handed empty-net goal by McLeod sealed the game.
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Jonah Bronstein joined the WIVB squad in 2022 as a digital sports reporter. The Buffalonian has covered the Bills, Sabres, Bandits, Bisons, colleges, high schools and other notable sporting events in Western New York since 2005, for publications including The Associated Press, The Buffalo News, and Niagara Gazette. Read more of his work here.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.