Philadelphia, Pa. (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres certainly didn’t play their best game on Wednesday night, but the important thing for them is they found a way to win.
Buffalo's 5-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers took a 38-save performance from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to get the job done, as he played his fourth-straight game.
Luukkonen’s best save came in the third period when the Flyers had 2-on-0 chance, but the Sabres goalie got across to make the save.
In the first period, the Sabres attacked and it produced Brandon Biro’s first NHL goal in only his second game. Biro outbattled Cam Atkinson in front of the net, and even laid out in the Flyers' crease to score the goal.
Buffalo's other goal in the first was a tic-tac-toe passing play between Jeff Skinner, JJ Peterka and Casey Mittelstadt.
The Sabres were skating and backing off the Flyers defense in the early part of the first period.
In the second period, the Flyers knew they couldn’t trade scoring chances with the Sabres, so they slowed the game down to a crawl and the Sabres obliged. Buffalo stopped skating and had no attack at all.
Philadelphia didn’t really attack either, and we witnessed probably the worst, most boring period of the season.
The third period wasn’t much different until Tage Thompson got his engine roaring and backed off the Flyers defense on a rush. He set up Owen Power joining the rush, and Buffalo had the lead for good.
Later, Tuch was hard along the wall and caused a turnover. He immediately found Thompson, and the Sabres had a two-goal lead.
Biro’s second goal of the game into the empty net sealed Buffalo’s first winning streak of the season.
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The Sabres and Flyers were the only two teams to be playing in the Eastern Conference on Wednesday, which meant Buffalo picked up ground on everybody else.
Luukkonen has been spectacular this year, as he's played now in four-straight games after waiting almost three weeks. It hasn’t seemed to be a problem for him at all. The 24-year-old stood tall in the third period for Buffalo, stopping all 20 Philadelphia shots faced.
Flyers goalie Carter Hart only played 10 minutes before leaving the game with a mid-body injury. He gave up two goals on five shots faced.
When you look at this game, I don’t think Buffalo would’ve won a similar contest two years ago. However, this was a classic case of finding a way to win. In my mind, that shows a certain maturity I don’t think this team had last year.
The same two teams will play in Buffalo on Friday night before the Sabres head to Toronto to play the Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
