Thompson, Sabres recover for shootout win against Flames

BUFFALO -- Tage Thompson scored his 10th goal of the season for the Buffalo Sabres, who recovered for a 3-2 shootout win against the Calgary Flames at KeyBank Center on Saturday.

Thompson extended his goal streak to three games when he scored on the power play in the second period. He’s had at least one point in 12 of 15 games this season.

“It wasn’t our prettiest game by any means, but [we] found a way to get the job done,” Thompson said. “Obviously, [Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen] had a great game, keeps us in it. Power play came up big, get a goal on the power play and then [penalty kill] was rock solid all night. … Sometimes, good teams find ways to win. We did that tonight.”

Luukkonen made 24 saves, then all three in the shootout, and Zach Benson scored for the Sabres (7-7-1), who have won three in a row. JJ Peterka had the only goal in the shootout.

“Those are the types of games you’ve got to win,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “They stacked up the neutral zone, made it tough on us. We had two or three posts, crossbar, to pull away. Our second power play, I thought was awesome. First power play, again, scored a big goal for us. And then just a [penalty] kill late.”

Mikael Backlund tied it in the third period after Matt Coronato scored in the second for the Flames (7-5-3), who saw all three games of their road trip go past regulation (1-0-2). Dan Vladar made 17 saves.

Calgary finished 0-for-3 on the power play.

“It’s the same story the whole trip, little slow starts,” said Backlund, the Flames captain. “We know that we’ve got to be better. Going home now, we know first period’s going to be a big key for us.

“It’s great that we come back and show character and resilience to stay in every game and fight back and get points, but if we want to win games, we’ve got to start to have better first periods and play with the lead.”

Calgary tied it 2-2 at 15:42 of the third. Backlund took a backhand pass from Jonathan Huberdeau in the left face-off circle and picked the corner on the far side.

Benson gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 1:11 of the first period. Jacob Bryson’s point shot hit defenseman Kevin Bahl’s skate in front and deflected over to Benson, who backhanded it five-hole.

Thompson’s one-timer from the left circle on the power play beat Vladar inside the far post to make it 2-0 at 13:37.

Coronato cut it to 2-1 at 17:44 of the second when he was uncovered at the side of the net to tap in a MacKenzie Weegar pass. It was Coronato’s fifth goal of the season.

Calgary outshot Buffalo 12-4 in the third.

“That goal at the end with Matty tapping it in,” Weegar said. “I thought we were starting to forecheck their [defense] a little bit more, getting pucks back, getting pucks to the net, winning some more face-offs, breaking out a little bit cleaner. Just executing.

“… That third period was fast, a lot of pace. It’s been good third periods for us so we can build off the third periods, but we want that first period to be started on time.”

NOTES: Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram played 32:34, becoming the sixth skater in franchise history to play more than 32 minutes in a game, and the first since Rasmus Ristolainen on Feb. 6, 2018 (32:39). … Buffalo has scored within the opening 1:15 in consecutive games for the sixth time in its history; Rasmus Dahlin scored 26 seconds into a 6-1 win at the New York Rangers on Thursday. … Dahlin assisted on Thompson’s goal, giving him 235 in his NHL career to pass Alexei Zhitnik for third all-time among Sabres defensemen. … Buffalo center Ryan McLeod won 13 of 17 face-offs (76.5 percent). … Weegar had an assist and was plus-2 in 25:05. … The Flames have outscored opponents 22-15 in the third this season.