Victor Olofsson had a goal and an assist in the third period as the Buffalo Sabres broke a tie and beat the visiting Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Tuesday night.
Jeff Skinner, Casey Mittelstadt and Dylan Cozens also scored for the Sabres, who have at least one point in eight of their last nine games.
Craig Anderson made 32 saves for Buffalo (26-34-11).
Jesper Fast and Nino Niederreiter scored goals and Jordan Staal provided two assists for the Hurricanes (45-17-8), who dropped their second game in a row.
Frederik Andersen, making his third consecutive start, stopped 18 shots.
Fast opened the scoring with the game’s only first-period goal as Carolina enjoyed a 13-5 edge in first-period shots. The Sabres didn’t have a shot on goal midway through the opening period.
Skinner scored just 1:21 into the second period on a 2-on-1 chance against his former team, picking up his 29th goal of the season.
Slightly more than 4 ½ minutes later, Mittelstadt’s fourth goal of the season came from the right circle and put the Sabres on top.
Niederreiter tied the game at 4:10 of the third period, giving him five goals in the last seven games. From there, it looked like the Hurricanes had developed momentum until that was snatched by the Sabres.
Oloofsson broke the tie with 7:52 remaining in regulation after the Hurricanes failed to clear the puck out of the zone. Cozens’ power-play goal with 4:49 to play provided the two-goal cushion.
Buffalo scored on two of its five third-period shots on the way to finishing 2-1-1 on a four-game homestand.
The Sabres and Hurricanes have split two games this season and they meet again in the back end of consecutive games Thursday night in Raleigh, N.C.
-Field Level Media