Tuch scores hat trick, Sabres defeat Blackhawks for 2nd straight win

BUFFALO -- Alex Tuch scored a hat trick for the Buffalo Sabres in a 6-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at KeyBank Center on Friday.

It was Tuch’s third NHL hat trick, all with the Sabres, and his first on home ice.

“It’s awesome,” Tuch said. “Scoring my first goal in this building [since Nov. 29], that was even a whole monkey off the back, and it felt really good. Doing it in front of the home crowd was that much more special and it was great to get the win in front of them.”

Jack Quinn and Dylan Cozens each had a goal and an assist, and Rasmus Dahlin had two assists for the Sabres (13-19-4), who have won two in a row following an 0-10-3 skid. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 15 saves.

“I think we know where we’ve been at and now, we’d like to turn the corner, turn the page and keep going in this direction,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think the focus, we talked about the focus coming out of the Christmas break and you really don’t know what you’re going to get after three days off, but I think they just proved that they were ready to come out and play.”

Tyler Bertuzzi and Seth Jones scored for the Blackhawks (12-22-2), who have lost three straight after a three-game winning streak. Petr Mrazek allowed four goals on 11 shots before Arvid Soderblom (22 saves) replaced him to start the second period.

“Just not good enough,” Chicago coach Anders Sorensen said. “Urgency, compete level, coming out on the road, not good enough.”

Zach Benson gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead when he redirected Dahlin’s cross-ice pass from the point inside the left post at 9:51 of the first period.

Tuch’s tip of Tage Thompson’s point shot trickled through Mrazek’s pads to make it 2-0 at 12:23 and 15 seconds later, Quinn one-timed a pass from Cozens from the right circle to push it to 3-0 at 12:38.

Quinn has four goals in his past five games after scoring once in his first 24.

“He’s such a great player and he’s got such a great shot, so when he has that confidence … he’s an unbelievable player, and it’s so fun to play with him,” Cozens said of Quinn. “He’s so smart, and he’s great at finishing.”

Cozens took a drop pass from Quinn and scored far side on a wrist shot from the left circle to extend it to 4-0 at 19:18.

“With the day that we had (flying into Buffalo early Friday morning), it was imperative for us to be simple and play hard, and at least get our legs under us,” Blackhawks forward Taylor Hall said. “Before you blink it’s 4-0, and that’s unacceptable. We put Petr in a very tough spot.”

Bertuzzi’s wrist shot from the top of the right circle went stick side on Luukkonen to cut it to 4-1 at 16:39 of the second period.

Jones narrowed it to 4-2 at 3:06 of the third period when he put Patrick Maroon’s pass past Luukkonen’s glove from the right circle.

Tuch made it 5-2 at 5:48 moments after leaving the penalty box for tripping Kevin Korchinski. He took a pass from Ryan McLeod at the Sabres’ blue line by the team’s bench and carried it to the bottom of the right circle, beating Soderblom stick side.

“Honestly, that’s a really bad penalty on my part,” Tuch said. “They’re only down by a couple goals there. They get a power-play goal, they’re down by one, and letting them back into the game definitely is not something I want to do. So, it was a tough penalty on my part, but great kill and I was lucky enough to capitalize on a little breakdown at the end of the penalty kill there.”

Tuch completed the hat trick when he stole the puck from defenseman Alex Vlasic at the Buffalo blue line and broke in and snapped it past Soderblom from the left hashmarks at 15:06 for the 6-2 final.

“Just weren’t ready to compete,” Jones said. “Shot ourselves in the foot on multiple occasions and it ends up in the back of our net, especially against a young, skilled team like this. They want to feed off creating turnovers from us, and that’s exactly what we gave them.”

NOTES: Connor Bedard extended his point streak (two goals, three assists) to three games with an assist on Bertuzzi’s goal. … Hall has five assists in a three-game assist streak. …. … Dahlin had his 26th multipoint period, passing John Van Boxmeer for the second-most by a Sabres defenseman and trailing only Phil Housley (60).