Sabres Glide Past Caps, 7-4

A day after riding a four-goal second-period outburst to a much-needed 6-3 home ice win over the New York Rangers, the Caps took their act on the road in a Sunday matinee match against the Sabres in Buffalo. This time, it was the Sabres who took it to the Caps in the second period, scoring four straight goals in a span of just seven minutes to break open a 2-2 game en route to a 7-4 win over Washington.

Dylan Cozens recorded his first career hat trick, scoring Buffalo's first and last goals of the game, adding an assist and also registering his 100th career point on Sunday afternoon at KeyBank Center.
After scoring a combined total of 10 goals over the life of a recent six-game losing streak, the Caps have scored 10 goals in their last two games. But turnovers and poor defensive zone coverage kept them from stringing together a pair of wins this weekend. Washington is now 1-6-1 in the second half of back-to-back games this season.
"Four [goals] should be good enough to win a hockey game for me," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "Defensively, we definitely had some mistakes, especially in the second period. And the puck decisions [were lacking], whether it's our end, the neutral zone or the offensive zone."
The two teams traded tallies in the first. Cozens put Buffalo up 1-0 at 10:40 of the first, converting a Casey Mittelstadt feed on a 2-on-1 rush.
Washington's Dylan Strome evened it up just over four minutes later, beating Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen on the short side on a nice pass from Nick Jensen at 14:45.
An Evgeny Kuznetsov giveaway directly to the dangerous Tage Thompson in Washington ice ended up in the back of the Caps' net in a flash when the big pivot instantly sniped a shot past Darcy Kuemper on the blocker side at 16:35.
T.J. Oshie answered back just 15 seconds later, converting a Strome feed from the weak side at 16:50, enabling the Caps to get to the first intermission all even.
The Sabres' second-period scoring parade started at 5:49 when Jeff Skinner potted a rebound of a Mattias Samuelsson shot. Less than three minutes later, Zemgus Girgensons made it 4-2 after the Caps lost a puck battle in the corner and Buffalo captain found Girgensons all alone on the weak side at 8:36.
Vinnie Hinostroza - recalled from AHL Rochester in the wake of an injury to top six winger Alex Tuch - notched his first goal of the season at 10:07 of the second to end Kuemper's afternoon. Starting on consecutive days for the first time this season, Kuemper was reached for five goals on 19 shots in 30:07 of work, but he had little chance to stop any of the five that got behind him.
With Charlie Lindgren on in relief, Cozens struck for his second of the game at 12:49, Buffalo's fourth goal on nine shots on net in a span of exactly seven minutes. Washington hardly had the puck at all during that stretch; the Caps were credited with just two shot attempts - both of which were blocked - during that seven-minute span. When Cozens netted his second of the game to end that seven-minute Sabres spree, Buffalo had four goals in the nearly 13 minutes played to that point in the period while the Caps had just one shot on net over the same span.
"It's tough," says Oshie of that seven-minute stretch. "It wasn't one guy, or one line, or one [defensive] pairing. It came through different guys being on the ice and the attention to detail not being there.
"We knew coming in; Lavi told us these guys have a high-octane offense and they know how to move the puck. They can exploit you if you turn the puck over and you don't play them solidly defensively. And in that span of seven minutes was some of our worst defensive hockey in a while."
To their credit, the Caps didn't fold up and go away. They finally stemmed the tide, and eventually cut the deficit from four to two goals in the final seven minutes of the frame. Alex Ovechkin ended a six-game scoring drought to make it 6-3 and Sonny Milano scored on a nifty backhander on a Washington power play, beating Luukkonen on a short-ice breakaway.
Down two goals heading into the third, the Caps needed to score the next goal but weren't able to pull it off. Cozens completed his hat trick at 11:52 of the third, sending the Caps to their seventh loss in the last eight games.
With 10 goals scored in the two weekend games, the Caps have hopefully cured the offensive woes that have vexed them for more than a month. But their breakdowns in defensive-zone coverage and propensity for turnovers prevented them from stringing wins together for just the second time in two months.
"In the first I thought we had good speed and the right idea with what we were doing," says Laviolette. "We knew that against a team that's pretty dynamic offensively that we would have to play good defense and manage the game.
"There were just too many things that we could have done better defensively to manage the game with the puck. They're a fast team, they counter quickly and we've got to do a better job of managing the puck."