Sabres shut out Stars, hand them sixth loss in seven games

BUFFALO -- Carter Hutton made 25 saves to help the Buffalo Sabres hand the Dallas Stars their sixth loss in seven games, 4-0 at KeyBank Center on Monday.

"It's nice, especially the last two games, we had two-goal leads and … gave up the lead," Hutton said after the Sabres' third straight win. "But to come out and get an early one, and then I think we just played. They had some chances, but at that point, we were kind of just flushing them out. It was a rock-solid game.
"I thought early on, it was a tight game and then again, they have a couple power plays and then our power play clicks. I think that's the difference in the game. We get a power-play goal and we take it from there."
WATCH: [All Stars vs. Sabres highlights]
Victor Olofsson had a goal and an assist, Sam Reinhart, Jeff Skinner and Marcus Johansson scored, and Jack Eichel had two assists for Buffalo (5-0-1). Olofsson became the first player to score his first seven NHL goals with the man-advantage. He has five this season.
Ben Bishop made 18 saves for the Stars (1-5-1) and had his 12-game winning streak against the Sabres end.
"That's a much better team performance even though the result no one likes and everyone is unhappy with where we are at right now, but things will turn," Stars coach Jim Montgomery said. "We're just not making those finishing plays once we cross the offensive zone."

Olofsson's power-play goal from the right face-off circle made it 1-0 at 6:27 of the second period.
"It's obviously fun to have some kind of record, even if I want to get that 5-on-5 goal as well," said Olofsson, who has played 11 NHL games. "It felt a lot better today, my overall game, and I'm sure it will come soon."
Dallas forward Andrew Cogliano said, "As a team, that's when you have to really bear down and get a kill, and it's on the guys on the ice. We've been a decent penalty-kill team all year (78.6 percent). Would like to have that one back because I think if we would've killed it we would've been in much better shape in terms of trying to win the game."
Reinhart made it 2-0 with 2:04 remaining in the second with a one-timer from the high slot off a pass from Olofsson.
"We didn't let up after we had the lead," Johansson said. "We kept going and we kept playing the right way, didn't really force things as we've done a little bit in previous games. We made it hard for them, and it was 60 good minutes."
Skinner finished a 3-on-1 off a pass from Vladimir Sobotka to make it 3-0 at 4:20 of the third period.
Johansson made it 4-0 with a one-timer from the point at 6:02.
The Stars went 0-for-2 on the power play and are 1-for-22 (4.5 percent) this season.

They said it

"Overall we played better today than against Washington at home (a 4-1 loss on Saturday). But that's not enough. When you get to that situation, everything feels like it's falling apart, but I think there's lots of experienced guys on the team who have been in this situation and battled through it. There is going to be a time when we are talking about different stuff." -- Stars forward Alexander Radulov
"Anytime you get off to a good start and get results, confidence naturally comes with that. What you have to do is keep working at your game and use the confidence in a positive way. We still have things to work on, we still have things we want to improve. Being able to get off to a good start results-wise is nice. Now we have to keep that momentum going." -- Sabres forward Jeff Skinner

Need to know

Bishop's only previous loss to the Sabres came with the Ottawa Senators on March 10, 2012, 4-3 in a shootout at home. … Buffalo has won its first four home games for the first time since 2006-07. The Sabres have a season-opening six-game point streak for the first time since going 6-0-2 in 2008-09. … This is the largest margin of victory the Sabres have had against the Stars franchise since a 6-2 win at the Minnesota North Stars on March 9, 1988. … Dallas had its five-game winning streak against Buffalo (5-0-0) end. The Stars had last lost to the Sabres 4-1 at Buffalo on Jan. 16, 2017.

What's next

Stars: At the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; FS-O, FS-SW, NHL.TV)
Sabres: At the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN+, PRIME, MSG-B, NHL.TV)