NHL: Barnstorming Sabres finally back home to take on Golden Knights

After resuming the NHL season with an impressive sweep of a three-game road trip, the Buffalo Sabres return home for the first time in nearly a month when they host the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday.

The Sabres, second in the Atlantic Division, four points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning, last played at home on Feb. 5, falling 5-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Buffalo hasn’t minded the long stretch on the road. The team is 16-2-1 in its last 19 road games and is on a nine-game road point streak, one shy of the franchise record. The streak includes a 6-2 victory at Tampa Bay on Saturday.

Josh Norris scored twice, and Rasmus Dahlin added a goal and two assists to help the Sabres jump out to a 5-0 lead in the first 22 minutes, ending the Lightning’s 10-game home win streak. The win capped a road trip that started with a 2-1 victory at New Jersey on Wednesday and included a 3-2 win over the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in a back-to-back on Friday.

“It just shows that we're a really good team. We've known that for a while now,” Norris said. “I think we have a lot of belief in ourselves right now, and it's a lot of fun playing.”

Buffalo, chasing its first playoff appearance in 14 years, is 24-5-2 in its last 31 games. The Sabres needed just 14 shots to score five goals against Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who leads the league with a 2.22 goals-against average.

“I think we played the right way ... and we played so fast,” Dahlin said. “Maybe they weren’t ready, or we just took it to another level, which was unreal. It was fun. We don’t get too high, we don’t get too low. We just stick with it and work really hard. There were a lot of goals today, a lot of blocked shots, a lot of good box-outs. We played the right way. It’s hard to play against us right now.”

Vegas will be playing the fourth game of a five-game road trip that started with a 6-4 comeback win at Los Angeles, followed by back-to-back losses at Washington (3-2) and Pittsburgh (5-0) on Friday and Sunday.

Slow starts have become a concern for Bruce Cassidy’s squad this season. The Golden Knights needed a five-goal third period to pull out the win over the Kings and have been outscored 9-1 in the first two periods across the first three games of the trip.

“It’s not a great stat,” Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “It’s been addressed, and we need to keep working to figure it out.”

The Golden Knights enter Tuesday’s game with just a one-point lead over second-place Anaheim in the Pacific Division and may be without captain Mark Stone. Stone, second on the team in scoring with 60 points, left Sunday’s game late in the first period after taking a stick to the upper left arm from Penguins defenseman Kris Letang.

“He’ll be day-to-day,” Cassidy said after Monday’s optional practice. “He was going to get treatment this afternoon.”

—Field Level Media/Reuters