At The Final Horn | Skinner's 4-goal game leads Sabres in road win

Jeff Skinner recorded a career-high five points, which included the sixth hat trick of his career to lead the Buffalo Sabres to a 5-3 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday.
Skinner posted a career-high four goals (and his first hat trick since October 20, 2018) to reach the 20-goal mark for the eighth time.
Tage Thompson also scored in Buffalo's win at Bell Centre, which was played in front of no fans. Craig Anderson made 29 saves to earn the 297th win of his career, which puts him in sole possession of 40th place all-time in NHL history. Alex Tuch had three assists.
Mike Hoffman, Jeff Petry and Joel Armia scored Montreal's goals and Sam Montembeault stopped 26 shots.
Buffalo's power play went 1-for-3 and the penalty kill was a perfect 3-for-3.

How it happened

Skinner opened the scoring 3:41 in when he tipped in a Casey Fitzgerald point shot for his 17th goal of the season.
Five goals were scored in the second period.
The Habs tied the game early in the middle frame when Hoffman one-timed a cross-ice pass in at the 1:11 mark.
Skinner put Buffalo back in the lead with 9:45 left in the second when his wrist shot made it past Montembeault. Alex Tuch was set up in front with a great screen.
Montreal evened things up in short order. Petry's slap shot from the point deflected in through traffic to make it 2-2 just 58 seconds later.
8:47 tie. Petry. Slap shot through traffic. Deflected. 58 secons leter.
Armia's one-timer in front with 3:51 left gave Montreal its first lead of the game. armia alone in front one-timer.

But on the power play with 1:36 to go in the period, some quick passing set up Thompson's 15th of the season. Skinner sent the puck over to Peyton Krebs, who wired a pass back across the ice for Thompson's finish.
Skinner completed the hat trick at the 8:16 mark of the third and then added his fourth of the day with 1:46 with a backhand in front.

Roll the highlight film

Here are all four goals from 53:

Worthy of a mention

Sunday's game marks the 14th time in franchise history that a Sabres player has scored at least four goals in a game.
Skinner is the eighth player to score four goals, a list which includes Rick Martin (4x), Dave Andreychuk (3x), Alexander Mogilny (2x), Lindy Ruff, Miroslav Satan, Thomas Vanek and Jack Eichel.
Thompson has 17 points (5+12) in his last 16 games played, including five points (1+4) in his last four contests.
Tuch has 17 points in 15 games this season (6+11). His last three-assist game came on December 3, 2019.

Coming up next

The Sabres open up a three-game homestand on Tuesday when the New York Islanders come to town.
Faceoff is at 7 p.m. on MSG and WGR 550 with pregame coverage starting at 6:30 on MSG. Tickets are on sale now.