Tkachuk has 3 points, Panthers defeat Sabres

BUFFALO --Matthew Tkachuk had three assists for the Florida Panthers in a 4-1 win against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Monday.

Tkachuk has 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in a seven-game point streak.
"It was solid from the start," he said. "I think the first 10 minutes were awesome. Let off the gas a little bit at the end of the first and tried trading chances, kind of just played into their style a little bit more than ours and immediately we recognized that's not the way we're going to have success."
Carter Verhaeghe had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves in his fourth straight start for the Panthers (21-20-4), who have won five of their past seven games.
"It's his first run of the year where he's getting a bunch of games and he's into a good rhythm," Florida coach Paul Maurice said of Bobrovsky. "We need that kind of goaltending. He's battling in the net. He's a little bit acrobatic but he's intense, and the guys like that. It looks good from the bench, he's making big saves. Everybody is kind of rallying around him."
Alex Tuch scored, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 30 saves for the Sabres (21-19-2), who have lost four of their past five games.
"It wasn't anything we haven't seen before out of some of the teams that play a fast style against us," Tuch said. "They were structured and they're a good team, they have a lot of skill, so we have to be ready for that. But we do have to play a little simpler at times and try not to have any turnovers in the neutral zone because they were looking to capitalize on that, keep us on our heels."

Brandon Montour gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 4:01 of the first period. Tkachuk tried to stuff the puck in from the left side of the net, but it hit Luukkonen and went through the crease to Montour, who lifted it over Luukkonen's right pad.
Sam Bennett made it 2-0 at 8:04 of the second period when the puck hit Tkachuk and bounced to him at the inner right hash marks.
Anton Lundell took a pass from Sam Reinhart on a 2-on-1 to push it to 3-0 34 seconds into the third period.
"I thought that once we stopped turning it over, once we started putting it behind their net, once we started as forwards backchecking as hard as we can and picking up guys and not letting any odd-man rushes against, that's when we had more success," Tkachuk said.

Tuch scored from the right wall to cut it to 3-1 at 11:27.
Verhaeghe scored into an empty net with 1:38 remaining for the 4-1 final.
"The whole game, we didn't have the emotional energy that we had," Buffalo coach Don Granato said. "It's two weeks in a row now, really big highs on a Saturday night (5-3 win against the Nashville Predators), two days later on a Monday, we couldn't get the energy, the emotional energy. … If you're not on, you don't feel yourself, don't complicate the simple. Start putting pucks to the net and go in there. Put pucks deep, make sure you're working hard without the puck, and we were challenged to do that tonight. When we've struggled, that's been the challenge."
NOTES:Tkachuk has 44 multipoint games in the regular season since the start of the 2021-22 season, fifth-most in the NHL in that span behind Connor McDavid (68), Leon Draisaitl (50), Auston Matthews (49) and Kirill Kaprizov (46). … The Panthers have won six straight games against the Sabres dating to Dec. 2, 2021, their third-longest active streak against an opponent (eight straight wins against the Detroit Red Wings; seven straight against the San Jose Sharks). … Buffalo has lost four straight games at home. ... Tuch set an NHL career high with his 21st goal of the season, eclipsing his previous high of 20, set in 2018-19 with the Vegas Golden Knights.