At The Final Horn: Penguins 3 - Sabres 0

The Buffalo Sabres kept it close until the end, but the Pittsburgh Penguins were the only team to find the back of the net as Pittsburgh handed Buffalo a 3-0 loss Saturday night at KeyBank Center.
Carter Hutton was steady in net for Buffalo, making 31 saves.
Jake Guentzel, Sidney Crosby and Mark Jankowski scored for Pittsburgh. Both Crosby and Jankowski scored on an empty net with under a minute remaining in the game. Casey DeSmith made 24 saves to earn his first shutout of the season.
The Sabres are 0-8-2 over their last 10 games and since returning from a two-week COVID-related hiatus on February 15, the team is 2-12-2.

What happened

No goals were scored in the first period, but Hutton made perhaps the best play of the opening 20 minutes. While the Sabres were on the power play, Hutton stepped up to make a great pad save on Teddy Blueger, who was skating in on a 2-on-1 shorthanded chance with Zach-Aston Reese. Pittsburgh outshot Buffalo 10-6 in the period.
The Penguins scored on the power play with 3:23 left in the second period to make it 1-0. Evgeni Malkin found Guentzel in front, where he won a battle and put the puck in the back of the net.
Malkin has points in 14-consecutive games against Buffalo (7+14), and has 58 points (19+39) in 44 career games overall. He's riding a seven-game point streak (3+7).
Crosby added an empty netter with 52.3 seconds left in regulation and Jankowski added another with 15.3 seconds remaining.
Buffalo went 0-for-2 on the power play and 1-for-2 on the penalty kill.

Worth mentioning

Before the game, Sabres coach Ralph Krueger announced that captain Jack Eichel will be out for "the foreseeable future" with an upper-body injury.
Eichel sustained the injury during Buffalo's loss to the New York Islanders on March 7. Krueger said Wednesday that Eichel had gone out of state for further assessments.
"Because of the nature of the injury, we can't put a fixed date on that," Krueger said. "We're expecting it to go on a little longer."
Dylan Cozens also missed the game after sustaining an upper-body injury during the third period of Buffalo's game against Pittsburgh on Thursday.

Coming up

The Sabres' next game is Monday night at home against the Washington Capitals. Faceoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. on MSG and WGR 550 with pregame coverage starting at 6:30 on MSG.
That game will open up a back-to-back set for Buffalo. They'll face the New Jersey Devils on the road on Tuesday.