Dahlin, Sabres end seven-game skid with win against Jets

WINNIPEG --Rasmus Dahlin scored twice for the Buffalo Sabres, who won for the first time in eight games, 4-2 against the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday.

"[Dahlin] is a great player and he's going to make more plays than he's going to give the other team," Sabres coach Don Granato said. "Tonight was a really good vision into his future. That was a vision into his future and capabilities and nice to see."
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 34 saves for Buffalo (9-15-4), which was 0-5-2 in its past seven games, and Tage Thompson and Victor Olofsson each had two assists.
"He's unbelievable," Dahlin said of Luukkonen. "When we need him, he does those crazy saves. He's so calm in the net. He makes us confident in our D-zone. … He's for sure a huge part of the success."
Pierre-Luc Dubois had a goal and an assist for Winnipeg (13-10-5), and Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves.
"We were slow to start with," Jets coach Paul Maurice said. "We skated for 15, 20 minutes. And then slowed and could never get back up to speed."

Dahlin scored the tiebreaking goal with 39 seconds remaining in the second period on a point shot to make it 3-2.
"To come out in the third in the lead, it's huge," Dahlin said. "It was nice to get that goal. I think in the third we just came out and battled and played tight defensively. It was good."
He scored a power-play goal at 7:14 of the first period to give the Sabres a 1-0 lead, before Dubois tied it 1-1 at 10:04.
"The goals are always nice, but I think you can see [Dahlin] was playing really well today and breaking up the puck," Luukkonen said. "Defensively, too, it's nice to see that and I think everybody feels good when the guys play well. I think we did real well today."
Anders Bjork gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead at 11:30 of the second period before Nikolaj Ehlers tied it 2-2 at 12:36.
"They are young team with a lot of skill, they have a lot of speed and they were able to use that tonight," Ehlers said. "I don't think we were good enough at shutting that down, because that starts when we have the puck and it's all five (players) on the ice. That's something we that we got to clean up."

Jeff Skinner scored at 11:55 of the third period for the 4-2 final.
"It's on the players," Jets defenseman Nate Schmidt said. "That's us having the giddy-up and get-going to play and understand this team. … They have young players, they're good, they're skilled, they can make great plays and playing with that kind of go out there and just kind of go-play attitude, you can go and have a lot of confidence to make those types of plays.
"For some of these young guys, they're breaking into the league. They're good players. It's 100 percent on us, being ready for the game, being prepared and have the giddy-up, the jump to go the whole game."
NOTES:Sabres defenseman Robert Hagg left the game in the second period with an undisclosed injury. Granato said he will be reevaluated Wednesday. … Buffalo goalie Malcolm Subban, who last played in a 6-2 loss at the Carolina Hurricanes on Dec. 4, was the backup. … Dubois had his seventh multipoint game of the season, and third in his past six games.