Sabres win overtime thriller

Scoring	1st	2nd	3rd	Total
Sabres	1	1	1	3
Rangers	0	0	2	2

Jeff Skinner scored a late third period goal and the overtime winner to help Buffalo grab its’ eighth consecutive victory. The team battled through some sloppy defensive play and found themselves running around their zone at times, but with the same relentless determination, Buffalo completed yet another miraculous comeback and find themselves currently on top of the Eastern Conference.

The victory was a complete team effort with consistent play from not only the team’s top line, but also from Tage Thompson, Casey Mittelstadt, and a strong 31-save performance from Carter Hutton.

Jeff Skinner’s 16th and 17th goals of the season puts him in a tie with Boston’s David Pastrnak for the NHL lead.

Per.	Time	EV	Goal	Assist	Assist
1	5:43		Nicklas Backstrom (1)	Alex Ovechkin (1)	T.J. Oshie (1)
1	8:48	PPG	Taylor Hall (1)	Victor Olofsson (1)	Jack Eichel (1)
1	10:33	PPG	T.J. Oshie (1)	Alex Ovechkin (2)	John Carlson (1)
2	7:05		John Carlson (1)	T.J. Oshie (2)	Nicklas Backstrom (1)
2	13:23		Brenden Dillon (1)	Conor Sheary (1)	Lars Eller (1)
2	18:46		Tobias Rieder (1)	Dylan Cozens (1)	Jake McCabe (1)
3	0:20		Jake McCabe (1)	Jack Eichel (2)	Tage Thompson (1)
3	0:46		Jakub Vrana (1)	---	---
3	18:06		Victor Olofsson (1)	Taylor Hall (1)	Sam Reinhart (1)
3	18:57	EN	Garnet Hathaway (1)	Nick Jensen (1)	---

The teams exchanged goals in the first two periods with Casey Mittelstadt scoring at 12:39 of the first and Brendan Gallagher notching his 11th for the Canadiens with 1:48 left in the second period.

Montreal grabbed the lead midway through the third period when Andrew Shaw scored a power play goal after a questionable call for holding on Jason Pominville.

It looked as though the Sabres winning streak was about to come to an end, when they once again pushed their game to another level. With 2:26 left in the third period Jeff Skinner found himself in the perfect spot in front of Canadiens goalie Antti Niemi to knock in his 17th of the season, sending the game into overtime.

In the overtime period, Buffalo finally caught a break when Max Domi was called for slashing Rasmus Ristolainen after the Sabre made a strong move to the front of the net.

It took Buffalo about a minute and a half into the power play to put the game away. A shot from the point by Rasmus Dahlin ended up in front of the Canadien netminder and after a mad scramble between Jeff Skinner and Jack Eichel, Skinner finally tapped in the winner.

The Sabres are right back at it Saturday evening for a quick one game road trip against the Detroit Red Wings. The game is at Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit with a 7 p.m. start time.