Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Sabres end Capitals’ streak on strength of Pouliot’s video-game goal

g1Z1qS_2UbRT
Evander Kane scored twice, but it was Benoit Pouliot's incredible goal that sealed the Sabres' 3-1 win over the Capitals.

The Buffalo Sabres haven’t made as much progress as they were hoping for so far in 2017-18, but that doesn’t mean that they lack some nice pieces.

On most nights, the best moments have come from the most obvious sources, as Jack Eichel, Evander Kane, and Jason Pominville have carried much of the offense.

Buffalo’s top guys certainly made an impact in tonight’s 3-1 win (Kane collected the 27th multi-goal game of his career, with the first coming thanks to a nice play by Eichel), yet management must feel nice to see a subtler addition scoring the game-winner.

After the Oilers bought out Benoit Pouliot, the Sabres snatched him up for cheap, and Pouliot showed why he was a nice value with his fifth goal of the season. If this kind of tally happened in “NHL 18,” less patient gamers might throw a controller:

Tremendous stuff. Alex Ovechkin’s 13th goal of the season ended up being the only one that beat Robin Lehner on Tuesday. This improves Buffalo to 5-8-2, marking just its second win at home.

It sure seemed like the Capitals were a little sleepy in closing out a back-to-back set here. Barry Trotz can’t be happy about another significant penalty disparity, even if both teams failed to score on the PP (Washington went 0-for-1 while Buffalo failed on four opportunities).

[Trotz has complained about the Capitals’ discipline and officials’ calls before this season]

They’re now at 8-7-1 as a three-game winning streak comes to the end. They’ll get a few days off before two interesting home games: against the Penguins on Friday and the Oilers on Sunday.

They’ll need to bring a lot more energy into those efforts if they want to avoid slipping under .500.


James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.