Postgame Report | Sabres continue to fight in victory over Hurricanes

There was a familiar tune echoing from the Sabres dressing room following a back-and-forth 4-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday afternoon at KeyBank Center.
"Stayin' Alive," the Bee Gees' 1978 hit that rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts that February, boomed from a stereo as players undressed and unwound following another emotional and hard-fought victory, their sixth in the last eight games.
"It shows our character right now. We're not out of it," defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said. "We've just got to keep battling. It's next game, next game. So how hard we battled to the end, it just shows that we really want it and we've got to do everything we can."

Yes, you can tell by the way the Sabres use their walk. And with four games left, there's no time to talk. Buffalo sat just four points shy of the second Wild-Card spot after the win, with the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders still to play later Saturday.
"I think we're a resilient crew. Things like that come with being a tight group and knowing that we're going to stick together in tough times," forward Casey Mittelstadt said. "We've had our ups and down this year, but we're still here. We're still fighting and we're going to fight all the way to the end."

Mittelstadt tallied twice, marking his first multi-goal game since Dec. 29 against Detroit and tying his career-high with twelve goals. He's notched 11 points in his last seven games, primarily skating on a line with Alex Tuch and Jeff Skinner
"They know how to play with each other and obviously, they both can score, and I like to pass," Mittelstadt said. "They've been putting the puck away for me and obviously, tonight they returned the favor a bit, which was nice."
The Sabres jumped out to an early lead and had to battle back twice before Tage Thompson scored the go-ahead goal 6:15 into the third period. Thompson's 46th goal of the season came as the result of a spectacular defensive effort 200 feet down the ice by Rasmus Dahlin, who stopped Martin Necas from shooting the puck into a wide-open net.
"You can't really think," Dahlin said. "You've just got to block wherever you think it's the best spot to block. I'm not thinking, just doing anything to (keep the puck out)."

Dahlin's play defensively to keep the game knotted at three in the third period overshadowed an impressive performance offensively.
He scored a goal and added a pair of assists on goals by Mittelstadt that pushed him above the 70-point plateau for the season. His 72 points this year are the third-most by a defenseman in a single season in Sabres history.
"Today I had a great game and I feel like I've been having some chances lately too, but I haven't been able to score," Dahlin said. "Sometimes the puck goes in, sometimes it doesn't. All you can do is do your best."
The Sabres' ability to roar back from deficits in the second and third periods shows marked improvement from where they were just a month ago.

"It's hard to coach teams when you have success. Teams sometimes lose the ability to pay attention to details," Sabres coach Don Granato said. "Sometimes you're going to fail and you just got to learn from it and move on competitively."
Buffalo doesn't control its own fate, but what it can handle is how it performs on a nightly basis.
"You got to keep pushing that initiative," Granato said. "We have a long way to go. But we've been able to come quite a ways this year through that adversity and challenge."
Devon Levi made his third-straight start in goal for the Sabres and stopped 31 of 34 shots. Antti Raanta started in goal for the Hurricanes and made 26 saves.
Seth Jarvis, Jesper Fast and Sebastian Aho scored for Carolina.

#

How it happened

FIRST PERIOD
Buffalo earned two power plays in the first period but could only generate one shot with the extra attacker and six shots total for the entire period. However, the Sabres made the most of their limited opportunities.
Zemgus Girgensons nearly gave Buffalo an early lead when he rang a shot off the post on a 2-on-1 at the 3:54 mark and sent the puck sailing into the netting.
On the ensuing faceoff, Dahlin fired a pass from the left point toward Jeff Skinner near the top of the circles. Skinner redirected the pass to Mittelstadt with his skate, who was streaking to the net from the left dot. He took Skinner's pass and deked to his backhand to beat Raanta and give the Sabres a 1-0 lead.

Carolina answered later in the period when Jarvis attempted to pass to Martin Necas but it was kicked back to Jarvis' stick. He fired it past Levi to make it 1-1 with 5:24 to play.
The Hurricanes scored just 22 seconds later when Fast drove to the net, beating Levi for his ninth goal of the season to give Carolina a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
SECOND PERIOD
The Sabres got their third power play of the game early in the second period when Jalen Chatfield took a cross-checking penalty on Riley Stillman. Stillman laid a clean bodycheck on Jesse Puljujarvi and Chatfield immediately retaliated.
Dahlin's wrist shot from the center point evened the score at 2-2 for his sixth power-play goal of the season.

Carolina reclaimed the lead when Aho took a cross-ice pass from Teuvo Teravainen and beat Levi with 8:56 to play in the period to give the Hurricanes a 3-2 advantage.
As time wound down in the period, the Sabres tied the game again when Dahlin dangled through the Hurricanes defense and fed Mittelstadt with a backhand pass for his second goal of the game with 1:42 to play.
Mittelstadt now has 12 goals on the season, tying his career-high set in 2018-19.

THIRD PERIOD
The Sabres made plays at both ends of the ice in the third period to surge ahead.
Dahlin shined on the defensive end of the ice, stopping Necas who had a wide-open net and a chance to give the Hurricanes a lead with 14 minutes left. The Sweedish defenseman's play turned the momentum in the Sabres favor as they pulled ahead 15 second later.
On the rush, Thompson put the Sabres ahead 4-3 with his 46th goal of the season.

With 4:30 remaining, the Sabres were forced to kill off a penalty when Skinner was sent to the box for interference.
Carolina called timeout with 2:15 remaining and with the faceoff in the Buffalo zone, pulled Raanta in favor of the extra attacker.
The Sabres' defense held strong and Levi made 12 saves in the third period.

What we learned

1.Dahlin also became the first Sabres defenseman since Alexei Zhitnik in 1997-98 to record 15 or more goals in a single season.
2.Thompson's goal moved him into a tie with Danny Gare (1980-81) and Pat LaFontaine (1991-92) for the eighth-most goals in a single season by a Sabres skater with 46 tallies. He is the third Sabres skater to record at least 46 goals and 47 or more assists in a single season.
3.Granato opted to give Levi his third-straight start because he felt the young netminder gives his team the best chance to win right now. Levi is 2-1 in those starts with a .901 save percentage.
"We're in a must-win situation now. It's obvious," Granato said. "So, it'd be nice to be warm and fuzzy and give a guy a game for development reasons. He's in there because he's playing well. And that's good to see because he was another key factor today."

4. Owen Power was credited with the secondary assist on Mittelstadt's second goal and now has seven assists in his last six games. The No. 1 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft signed his rookie contract exactly one year ago, April 8th 2022.
Power was on the ice with Dahlin in several key situations on Saturday and said he's noticed the progress that Power has made this season.
"He's such a smart hockey player. He makes everything look so easy," Dahlin said. "He doesn't get credit for it. But he's such a smart hockey player. He reads seam passes. He always makes the right decision on the blue line."

Up next

The Sabres travel to New York on Monday for a 7 p.m. puck drop against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. The game will air live on MSG and WGR 550 with pregame coverage beginning at 6:30 p.m. on MSG.
The following night, the Sabres will head to New Jersey for their final meeting of the season with Devils.