Paul, Motte score early for Tampa Bay; Luukkonen shutout streak ends for Buffalo

BUFFALO -- Nicholas Paul and Tyler Motte scored 52 seconds apart in the first period and the Tampa Bay Lightning extended their season-long winning streak to five games with a 3-1 victory against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Saturday.

Paul also had an assist and Brandon Hagel had two assists for the Lightning (24-17-5). Jonas Johansson made 26 saves in his first start since Dec. 31.

“I thought we defended great today,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We didn’t really give up too much for the first two periods. Third period, they had the puck more than we did, but I never completely felt in duress. ‘JJ’ looked calm in net when they were on top of him. … In the end you have to keep the puck out of your net. If you're going to give up one goal in the game, you're going to have a good chance of winning the game. And that’s what we did tonight.”

Tampa Bay has outscored the opposition 22-10 in the run after going 2-4-0 in their previous six games.

“When we’re consistent in our game, we obviously have a lot of trust and belief in ourselves but (if) we consistently do it for as close to 60 minutes as we can, I think we like our chances most nights,” Motte said. “I think throughout maybe the first half of the year, we weren’t as consistent period in, period out as we’d like to be, so I think that’s a good focus of ours.”

Dylan Cozens scored, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 13 saves for the Sabres (20-22-4), who are 6-4-0 in their past 10 games after going 2-4-1 in their previous seven.

“I thought we were just sloppy with the puck,” Buffalo center Tage Thompson said. “I think we forced a lot of things through the neutral zone and kind of into their pressure, kind of making the game a little more difficult on ourselves and obviously that’s kind of how they got the first two goals, just kind of freebies for them. 

"The game plan going in there was just to make them work and make them defend and I think we let them off a little easy tonight, gave them kind of an easy game.”

Paul gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead at 6:14 of the first period when he took a pass from Hagel and finished off a passing play from the right circle, ending Luukkonen’s shutout streak at 164:09.

Luukkonen, who blanked the San Jose Sharks on Monday and the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday, had the longest shutout streak by a goalie in the NHL this season.

Motte made it 2-0 with a short-handed goal at 7:06. He pressured Alex Tuch at the blue line and when the Sabres forward pulled his stick off the puck, Motte collected it for a breakaway and slid it under Luukkonen’s right pad.

“A turnover at their blue line, tried to beat their [defenseman] backchecking up the ice,” Motte said. “Guess it’s not even a move, just a quick shot there that I’ve tried to get off in the past and I felt like I had a chance there, and luckily it went in.”

Cozens received a backhand pass from JJ Peterka low in the left circle and scored glove side to cut it to 2-1 at 13:52 of the second period.

Johansson had to be sharp early in the third period on a Tuch breakaway in the first minute, making a pad save.

“All game he was there making huge stops for us when we needed them,” Lightning center Anthony Cirelli said. “Obviously that one in the third there to start the period, the breakaway there, was massive for us. Whenever he’s in there he makes huge stops for us and gives us a chance to win every night.”

Calvin de Haan scored an empty-net goal at 18:44 of the third period for the 3-1 final.

Buffalo outshot Tampa Bay 15-2 in the third.

“We knew we just had to get it behind them and work,” Cozens said. “Make them turn it over and spread the zone and just get pucks to the net and try to have guys around the net. We didn’t do a good enough job at that.”

NOTES: The Lightning have scored 49 goals in the first period this season, third-most in the NHL behind the Vancouver Canucks (57) and Edmonton Oilers (51). … Hagel has 11 points (five goals, six assists) in seven career games against the Sabres, who selected him in the sixth round (No. 159) of the 2016 NHL Draft. … Luukkonen’s shutout streak surpassed the run of 158:34 by Joey Daccord of the Seattle Kraken from Dec. 29-Jan. 4. … Rasmus Dahlin, who played in his 400th NHL game, had an assist to bring his career total to 270 points (59 goals, 211 assists). Only four other active defensemen have posted as many points through 400 NHL games or fewer: Erik Karlsson (306 points, 400 games), Cale Makar (299 points, 280 games), Quinn Hughes (294 points, 328 games) and John Klingberg (275 points, 400 games). … Prior to the game, Buffalo recalled goalie Eric Comrie and assigned Devon Levi to Rochester of the American Hockey League.