Sabres stay hot, win 4th straight by pulling away 4-1 over Kings

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Zach Benson had a goal and an assist and the Buffalo Sabres continued their white-hot play with a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.

Tage Thompson, Sam Carrick and Rasmus Dahlin also scored for the Sabres.

Carrick and Dahlin scored 59 seconds apart midway through the third period, and Benson added an empty-netter to give the Sabres their fourth straight win and 12th in the past 13 outings. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 26 saves.

Buoyed by significant and vocal support despite being the visitors, the Sabres continued their push for an Atlantic Division title as they are on their way to ending a 14-year playoff drought, the longest in the NHL.

Artemi Panarin scored, picking up a point for the fifth straight game. Anze Kopitar tied Marcel Dionne for the Kings franchise record for points on home ice, and Anton Forsberg made 28 saves.

Los Angeles came into the day as the second wild card in the Western Conference but dropped behind the Nashville Predators, who won 4-1 over the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Kings started off strong. Panarin continued the productive start to his Kings tenure by opening the scoring with a power-play goal midway through the first period. He has five goals and 11 assists in 13 games for Los Angeles. It was the first goal the Sabres had allowed on the road in 176 minutes of game action, including consecutive shutouts at Vegas and San Jose.

But Buffalo came back to control the final two periods, with a failed coach's challenge by Los Angeles for a high stick in the build up before Carrick's slick backhand leading to Dahlin's power-play goal.

Sabres: Visit Anaheim on Sunday.

Kings: Visit Utah on Sunday.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl