Alex Tuch had a goal and an assist and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 32 of 35 shots as the host Buffalo Sabres held on to beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-3 on Tuesday night.
Ryan McLeod, Zach Metsa, Josh Doan and Tage Thompson also scored for the Sabres, who have won 11 of their last 12 overall and five straight on home ice. Defenseman Bowen Byrum had two assists.
Jake DeBrusk, Elias Pettersson and Liam Ohgren scored goals and Thatcher Demko made 15 saves for the Canucks, who suffered their fourth consecutive loss.
It was not the way the Canucks wanted to start this six-game road trip, their longest of the season.
Luukkonen set the tone early in the first period when the Canucks failed to score on their first power play of the game despite getting six shots on goal.
On Friday, Luukkonen was selected as one of Finland’s three goaltenders for the 2026 Winter Olympics next month in Italy. He leads all Finnish goalies this season in wins with eight.
Thompson collected a loose puck in the slot two minutes into the first period and turned and fired as Buffalo scored on just its second shot of the game.
The Sabres then reinforced why they are one of the best penalty-killing teams in the league when McLeod finished off a two-on-one with Tuch at 11:24 of the first to score his third short-handed goal of the season and make it 2-0.
Byram did all the heavy lifting on Buffalo’s third goal at 9:37 of the second, moving the puck down low in the Vancouver end then passing cross ice to Tuch, who had an open net to shoot at.
Metsa fired a shot from in close that went over the right shoulder of Demko to make it 4-0 at 6:13 of the third period.
DeBrusk got the Canucks’ third-period rally started by scoring at 10:17 when he knocked a rebound out of the air past Luukkonen to make it 4-1.
The Canucks then scored back-to-back goals just 39 seconds apart by Pettersson and Ohgren to cut the Sabres’ lead to one goal, 4-3, with less than five minutes to go in regulation.
Buffalo forward Doan snuffed out the comeback with an empty-net goal at 18:36.
–Field Level Media
