Mike Reilly on Tuesday scored the go-ahead goal 8 minutes, 48 seconds into the third period that helped the Ottawa Senators snap a seven-game road skid and take a 5-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres.
Tyler Ennis had a goal and an assist, while Jean-Gabriel Pageau also scored for the Senators, who had gone 0-4-3 on the road since a 5-2 win at Edmonton on Dec. 4.
Senators defenseman Mark Borowiecki sealed the victory by blocking Marcus Johansson’s point shot before banking the puck off the boards and scoring into an empty net with 2 minutes, 6 seconds remaining. Nikita Zaitsev added another empty netter with 6 seconds left.
Photo: AP
Although Pageau’s goal was his 20th of the season, he was most excited to see Borowiecki score his sixth.
“To see him score that goal after the two blocked shots, I would love to see the camera on our bench. Everyone was so pumped and everyone was so happy,” Pageau said.
It was a well-deserved reward for a blue-collar defenseman who needed five to six stitches to close a gash under his right eye after getting high-sticked during a 4-3 shoot-out loss to the New Jersey Devils on Monday — and it came about seven minutes after he briefly left the game with a right-leg injury after being upended from behind by the Sabres’ Kyle Okposo.
“It’s always nice to get rewarded, but that’s just the cherry on top,” said Borowiecki, who had an ice pack on his right knee. “I think I take more pride in the blocked shots than I do on the goal.”
Senators goalie Craig Anderson stopped 37 shots to snap a 0-4-1 skid, during which he allowed 22 goals.
Sabres captain Jack Eichel scored his career-best 29th of the season, while Sam Reinhart also scored for the Sabres, who were playing their first game following a 10-day layoff.
Sabres starting goalie Linus Ullmark was unable to put weight on his right leg as he was helped off the ice with 9:32 left in the third period. Ullmark, who stopped 17 of 20 shots, was hurt as he defended the net from circling Senators center Artem Anisimov and fell back on his right leg as his left skate slipped out from under him.
Sabres coach Ralph Krueger had no immediate update on the severity of Ullmark’s injury except to say that the goalie would require further evaluation yesterday.
“That’s part of the game and we have to deal with it,” Krueger said of the injury, before turning his attention to the loss.
“I think today, more painful is the way we lost the game, what we did and didn’t do to get the points we desperately wanted here tonight,” he said. “We seemed to be in it and then we fell back, and it just went that way all the way. We never really got a rhythm.”
Sabres goalie Carter Hutton took over and finished with eight saves in a game that Buffalo twice rallied from one-goal deficits before being outscored 3-0.
BLUES 5, FLAMES 4
David Perron and Ryan O’Reilly on Tuesday scored in a shoot-out to give the St Louis Blues a 5-4 win over hosts the Calgary Flames.
Perron, Alex Steen, Jaden Schwartz and Zach Sanford scored in regulation for the Blues, who got their first win in four games. Blues goalie Jordan Binnington stopped 27 shots to improve to 23-8-5.
Sean Monahan scored twice, while Matthew Tkachuk and Mark Jankowski also had goals for the Flames, who were 5-0 in shootouts. Flames goalie Cam Talbot finished with 30 saves.
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