Jack Quinn recorded a hat trick and an assist, Jason Zucker added a goal and an assist and Ramus Dahlin had three assists as the Buffalo Sabres defeated the visiting San Jose Sharks on Tuesday, 6-3, for their NHL-best eighth straight win.
Alex Tuch and Beck Malenstyn also scored for Buffalo, which is 29-6-2 since Dec. 9. The Sabres also moved four points clear of the Tampa Bay Lightning atop the Atlantic Division.
Alexander Wennberg notched a goal and an assist for the Sharks, which lost for the eighth time in 11 games (3-5-3). Keifer Sherwood also scored for San Jose, while teen sensation Macklin Celebrini scored his team-high 33rd.
The Sabres are averaging 4.5 goals per game during their win streak, and they wasted no time against San Jose.
Quinn scored his first goal just 4:12 into the game off a feed in the middle from Zucker. Ryan McLeod, who had three assists, started the sequence.
Less than 90 seconds later, Tuch — playing in his 600th NHL game — scored his 28th goal to give Buffalo a 2-0 advantage. He had a nifty deflection off a Dahlin slapshot.
Celebrini got one back for San Jose off a Sabres giveaway with 7:06 to play in the period. Will Smith snagged an errant pass and fed Celebrini in the middle for the score. The 19-year-old has scored a goal in four straight and five of six.
A spectacular individual effort by Malenstyn pushed Buffalo’s lead back to two early in the second period. Buffalo scored again less than four minutes later when Zucker followed a save by San Jose’s Yaroslav Askarov, who stopped 20 shots, but also allowed five goals.
Buffalo goaltender Alex Lyon made 17 saves, including a flurry late in the second period. He saved a slapshot from Zach Ostapchuk, denied an attempt from Collin Graf and stifled Tyler Toffoli off a restart.
Sherwood finally beat Lyon with half a minute to go in the second for his third in four games and 20th of the season.
The back-and-forth continued into the third. Quinn scored 42 seconds in, and Wennberg’s retort just over seven minutes later got the Sharks within two, but Quinn finished his first career hat trick with an empty-netter with 2:46 to play.
The victory gave the Sabres 40 wins for just the second time in the past 15 seasons.
Tage Thompson’s 11-game point streak came to an end for Buffalo.
