The Buffalo Sabres wrapped up three games on the West Coast with a game against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday afternoon. After wins over the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks, they were hoping to return home with three straight wins, and they were able to achieve that with a 3-2 win over the Kings.
Jack Quinn opened the scoring for the Buffalo Sabres with a power play goal in the first period, and that was the only goal for either team. The Sabres added to their lead in the second with Tage Thompson scoring his first goal of the night. The Kings would not go away quietly, with two straight goals of their own, one in the second period before tying it up in the third.
However, Thompson once again came through with a goal, this time on the power play to give the Sabres the lead, and they would hold on for the win. The Sabres are now returning to Buffalo with a 7-4-3 record, and these are some notable takeaways from the game on Halloween.
Power play is starting to produce for the Sabres
The Buffalo Sabres appear to have found something on this road trip as it pertains to the power play. Through the first 12 games of the season, the Sabres had only four power-play goals but have scored four in their past two games.
After scoring two against the Ducks on Thursday night, they added two more today, with Jack Quinn opening the scoring on the power play and Thompson scoring the game-winner with the man advantage in the third period.
The Sabres have a still long way to go to claim they have fixed their power play but over the last two games they have looked the best they have on the power play in a long time.
Tage Thompson with five goals in the past two games
Tage Thompson has been almost unstoppable the past two games after the Sabres made the switch to put him on a line with Zach Benson and Peyton Krebs. He would score one even strength and one power-play goal against the Kings after registering a hat trick against the Ducks.
Thompson now has 10 goals in the season and is well ahead of his pace from a season ago when he had 40 goals. Last season, he didn't have his 10th goal until the 20th game of the season, and if he keeps this pace up, the Sabres might have their first 50-goal scorer since Pat LaFontaine in the 1992-93 season.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has his best start of the season
There hasn't been a player under more scrutiny than Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and on Saturday against the Kings put together his best start of the season. He would finish the game stopping 27 of 29 shots and, for the first time this season, allowed fewer than three goals in a game.
According to Natural Stat Trick, Luukkonen had an Expected Goals Against of 3.49 in this game against the Kings and certainly bailed out the defense a few times. Similarly to the power play, this is great to see from Luukkonen, but he needs a few more of these starts to put a bad start to the season behind him.
Buffalo Sabres with 30 blocked shots against the Kings
One of the things that certainly helped Luukkonen in this game was the Sabres' skaters doing a great job of getting in shooting lanes and stopping shots before they even got to the crease. On Saturday, the Sabres would have 30 blocked shots, with Mattias Samuelsson leading the way with eight.
After Samuelsson, it was Tyson Kozak, Owen Power, and Olen Zellweger who were tied for second with four each. The Sabres now have 59 blocked shots over the past three games, after averaging only 11.45 through the first 11 games of this season.
After a deflating loss to the Washington Capitals, this has been a very productive road trip on the West Coast. The Sabres will try to build on that with four straight home games starting on Wednesday against the Ottawa Senators.
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