Elias Pettersson had two goals and an assist for the Vancouver Canucks in a 3-2 win against the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.
Conor Garland scored, Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller each had two assists and Casey DeSmith made 15 saves for the Canucks (43-18-8, 94 points), who won for the first time in three games.
Rasmus Dahlin scored twice and Alex Tuch had two assists for the Sabres (33-32-5, 71 points), who failed to gain ground in the race for the second wild card from the Eastern Conference. Devon Levi, who was recalled from AHL Rochester on Saturday, made 31 saves in his first NHL start since Jan. 24.
Conor Garland gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead at 4:06 of the first period. Levi made the save on a Hughes shot from the wall, but Garland was at the side of the net to push the puck past the netminder’s skate.
The Sabres challenged for goaltender interference on the play, but the call on the ice stood after video review.
Levi had to be sharp midway through the period, with a chest save on a Garland shot from the left faceoff dot followed by a pad save on Nils Hoglander in close before sprawling to cover the rebound.
DeSmith denied Buffalo of the equalizer early in the second period when he got his pad to the right post on a wraparound attempt from Jeff Skinner.
Petterson backhanded a rebound on the power play to push it to 2-0 at 13:48 of the second period. Levi stopped a shot by Miller from above the circles, but the rebound hit Sabres defenseman Jacob Bryson and bounced to Petterson on the left side.
The Canucks outshot the Sabres 10-3 in the second period.
Dahlin cut it to 2-1 at 9:23 of the third period. He took a pass from Owen Power and walked through Garland and Elias Lindholm into the left circle before cutting to the middle and sending a backhand past DeSmith’s glove.
Pettersson scored an empty-net goal at 18:09 to make it 3-1.
Dahlin’s shot from above the circles deflected off Vancouver defenseman Nikita Zadorov to narrow the gap to 3-2 at 19:38.
–Field Level Media
