Foligno scores twice to help Sabres top Canadiens

BUFFALO --Home ice hasn't been kind to the Buffalo Sabres this season, but all it took was a season-high scoring output to help them end a four-game losing streak.
Marcus Foligno had two goals and an assist, and the Sabres defeated the Montreal Canadiens 6-4 at First Niagara Center on Friday.
Foligno had the first three-point game of his NHL career. He assisted on the first of Evander Kane's two goals with 17.8 seconds left in the first period and scored two goals, including one on a penalty shot, in the second.

"I felt really engaged," Foligno said. "I felt that we, and myself, needed an answer after last night's game [a 5-1 loss at the Philadelphia Flyers] and I just felt that as a team we needed to bring it. This is a Montreal team that we've been playing well against and they're struggling too. It was a tough game, 6-4, you don't want to give up that many goals, but it was definitely a good win for us."

With 2:19 left in the second, Foligno was hooked from behind on a breakaway by Canadiens forward Alex Galchenyuk and was awarded a penalty shot. Foligno put a wrist shot over Canadiens goalie Mike Condon's glove and under the crossbar for his sixth goal of the season.
"We were kind of guessing on the bench what Marcus was going to do," Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said. "In practice sometimes, he likes to put on a nice deke move. He came in the showed the shot, which was a great shot coming in, going over his glove."
It was Foligno's sixth career two-goal game and the 15th time he's had a multi-point game, 11 of those have come at home. The penalty-shot goal gave Buffalo a 5-3 lead and proved to be the game-winner when Galchenyuk scored a power-play goal with 22 seconds left in the period.

"We wanted to keep the crowd into it," Kane said. "There was a lot of Montreal fans in the building, we didn't want them leaving early. We like playing in front of a lot of people, so I thought we'd give them a couple back and keep it interesting until the end."
Kane hit the empty net with 50.4 seconds left in the third period after Ryan O'Reilly dumped the puck out of the zone and it bounced off linesman Brad Kovachik's skate. The puck went to Kane who carried it ahead and shot it into the vacant net.
"It's like when you play golf, you play the course," Kane said. "I think [O'Reilly] did that and got a nice bounce there. I've had some bad luck of late so it was nice to get a little luck."
Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban protested with officials concerning the play and received a misconduct.
"There's a minute left in the game at that point, and I felt we had a chance to try to tie it up," Subban said. "We were pushing pretty good there, so obviously I'm upset about it. I don't know. I don't know if we deserve an explanation for it or not, but I'd like to know what we're supposed to do there. That's the game, right? The game's over once they score there and they're up by two."

The Sabres (22-28-6) won for the 10th time in 29 home games this season. It was their first win at First Niagara Center since Jan. 16.
"There's always enjoyment in winning a game," Bylsma said. "This group, we've gotten away in the last two games from where we need to play and how to play. We've played some hard-fought games and not gotten a win. It might not be the prettiest game. It certainly wasn't a Picasso. In the third there as well, we got some tense moments but battled hard for the win."
Foligno tipped a pass from Philip Varone behind Condon 2:18 into the second period for his fifth goal of the season to give Buffalo a 4-1 lead.
"You've got try to win the battle in front," Foligno said. "Phil's good; he made a heads-up play there. I yelled for it and if it goes off your stick or it goes off a body and it goes in it's the same thing. I just tried to get my body in front of it and it ended up going in for us."

Varone was recalled from Rochester of the American Hockey League on Friday. He replaced forward Daniel Catenacci who was placed on injured reserve after he sustained an upper-body injury in the Sabres' loss to the Flyers on Thursday.
Condon replaced starting goalie Ben Scrivens 1:28 into the second period after Scrivens allowed three goals on eight shots. Condon made 11 saves.
"It was a tough night for the goalies," Canadiens coach Michel Therrien said. "A tough night."
The last time the Sabres scored six goals was Dec. 26 in a 6-3 road win against the Boston Bruins. This was the highest offensive output at home by the Sabres this season.
"We haven't scored a lot of goals on home ice," Kane said. "I think our last 10 games going into tonight we scored 18 goals on home ice. You're not going to win a lot of hockey games doing that so it was nice to get contributions from a lot of different guys tonight and kind of have every line contribute."

After Sven Andrighetto scored the first of his two goals 3:44 into the first period, the Sabres scored four in a row. David Legwand and Kane had goals in the first period, and defenseman Josh Gorges and Foligno scored 50 seconds apart early in the second.
The Canadiens cut the deficit to 4-3 on Galchenyuk's first of two power-play goals at 4:47 of the second and Andrighetto's second goal of the game 2:01 later.
"We had opportunities the whole game to score goals," Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty said. "We scored four, it just seemed like the puck wouldn't bounce at the end there. A couple of posts, a couple bounced through the crease behind the goalie. I really liked the way we played other than giving up the five goals on some errors. I don't think it's a bad game. I think it's just a couple of lapses that gave them some goals."

The Canadiens (27-25-4) had won their previous three games.
"It's tough, a tough game for us," Subban said. "Obviously, we'd like to have a better result, but at the same token, I felt we did a lot of things well. We definitely scored enough goals to win the hockey game; just didn't happen for us."
Canadiens forward Paul Byron returned to the lineup after missing eight games with a lower-body injury.