The Sabres left California with something they’d been chasing for a month: momentum.
Buffalo finished off a three-game sweep with Saturday’s 3-2 win over the Kings at Crypto.com Arena, its first three-game winning streak of the season. The trip netted seven of a possible eight points, and the Sabres return home at 7-4-3 looking far more settled than they did early on.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was a big reason why. He stopped 27 shots for his fourth win, and Buffalo needed plenty of him in a game Los Angeles controlled at times. The Kings generated 4.01 expected goals, per Stathletes, but Luukkonen kept the Sabres upright with a strong outing that included an Erik Haula breakaway stop in the first period and 13 saves in a second period where the ice tilted heavily the other way.
“I felt great. I’ve been feeling good in the games,” Luukkonen said, while also crediting the season-high 30 blocked shots in front of him.
The road trip also gave Buffalo a clear offensive spark on the power play. The Sabres scored twice with the extra man on Saturday and have gone 4-for-6 over their last two games. That’s a sharp turnaround from an 0-for-13 start, and it was the kind of special-teams burst that changed the shape of the trip.
The first goal came early in the opening period, when Zach Benson worked the right wall and spun a backhand pass across the zone to Jack Quinn. The sequence started with Rasmus Dahlin and Noah Östlund keeping the puck in at the point, and Quinn finished it off with a quick deke between the circles before beating Anton Forsberg for his eighth goal.
“Just a crazy play,” Quinn said of Benson, whose nine primary assists lead the team. “But he’s got such good vision, he does that stuff all the time, you so learn to expect it from him.”
Buffalo’s second-period power play didn’t score, but it still created pressure, with rebounds and net-front chaos leading to five shots on Forsberg and three more attempts blocked. Then, after Los Angeles tied the game early in the third, the Sabres got another chance with 6:31 left when Josh Doan drew a trip.
This time, the puck movement was the difference. Buffalo lost the faceoff, but Östlund chased down the rim-around, kept the puck alive, walked the blue line and slipped it to Dahlin. That movement pulled the Kings out of shape, and Quinn found Tage Thompson for the go-ahead goal.
“Our group’s gotten together as a unit and just talked about what we’re looking for out there,” Thompson said. “I think every power play should have an objective of who you’re trying to find and where the threats are. When you do that, it takes the thinking out of it, the puck moves quicker, and you let the puck do the work.”
Thompson is the obvious target right now. His two-goal night gave him five goals in the last two games and 10 on the season, and he’s now on pace for 60 after entering Anaheim on pace for 35. He also fired eight shots on goal Saturday and sits second in the league with 63 total shots.
Quinn’s finish and Thompson’s touch have made the man advantage look dangerous when Buffalo is getting the puck where it wants it.
“The zone time, the entries. The loose-puck recovery by Östlund on the goal tonight was huge.
The play that Quinn made to find Tommer,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “You put the work in, and we’re starting to see results.”
The Sabres finished Saturday 2-for-4 on the power play and are up to 8-for-47 overall, or 17 percent. That number still isn’t pretty, but after the slow start, the recent surge has given Buffalo a real lift.
“Obviously a slow start for us, but it’s great to contribute,” Quinn said. “It’s what our team needs from us."
There was also some late-game heat. Peyton Krebs and Kings defenseman Joel Edmundson got into it behind Forsberg’s net midway through the third period and kept wrestling all the way to the benches.
Then, with 3:39 left, Edmundson laid Krebs out in the neutral zone. Krebs braced for the hit and avoided major head contact, but Thompson immediately stepped in and dropped the gloves.
Thompson took a roughing minor on the sequence, leaving Buffalo to protect its one-goal lead on the penalty kill. The Sabres did exactly that.
“He’s looking after his teammate. He thought it’s a bad hit,” Ruff said.
“Those are the ones you scream at your teammates, ‘You’ve got to kill this off.’ And I thought the guys hunkered down and did.”
“A huge kill to bail me out there,” Thompson agreed.
The trip ended with Buffalo showing a little bit of everything: timely scoring, better goaltending, and enough pushback to hold a lead when things got messy. For a team still trying to stack good nights together, that’s a useful place to be.
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