Sabres defeat Canadiens, end four-game losing streak

BUFFALO --Tage Thompson scored two goals, and the Buffalo Sabres ended a four-game losing streak with a 4-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens at KeyBank Center on Friday.

Thompson has scored an NHL career-high 10 goals and 15 points this season.
"I feel like I've always entered games with the mindset of 'I'm going to score,'" Thompson said. "I think now I'm getting a lot of opportunity and they're going in for me. I think the confidence is continuing to grow, and that's just the product of guys playing good hockey around me, too. As a group, I think we've been playing good. Obviously haven't gotten a ton of the results lately we've wanted, but I think we've done a lot of good things. A lot of that success is coming from the guys around me."
Cody Eakin had a goal and an assist, and Jeff Skinner and Victor Olofsson each had two assists for the Sabres (8-10-2). Dustin Tokarski made 25 saves.
"I loved the way he looked," Buffalo coach Don Granato said of Tokarski, who had been pulled in each of his previous two starts. "Confident, he absorbed pucks, and any rebounds or any pucks that went off of him were in the corner for the most part, not front. But again, he reads the shot selection very well. And he did all that tonight."

Josh Anderson scored, and Sam Montembeault made 35 saves for the Canadiens (5-15-2), who are 1-5-1 in their past seven games and 1-9-1 on the road this season.
"Yeah, it's frustrating," Anderson said. "I'm not going to lie here. I'm not going to sit here and go through it. Good first period, we are in the game, and then the second period, just got outworked. That's all we've been talking about this year. I don't have an answer for you. I don't know what to say. I really don't."
Thompson gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 4:08 of the first period. He helped force a turnover by Canadiens forward Artturi Lehkonen along the boards before receiving a pass from Olofsson and scoring from the slot.
Anderson tied it 1-1 at 12:44 when he intercepted a pass attempt by Skinner in the slot.
"They scored the first goal, we stayed with our game and tied it," Montreal coach Dominique Ducharme said. "We weren't able to maintain it over 60 minutes. That's what happened in the second period. We crack and we make bad plays with the puck. … Eventually, it's going to cost you."
Eakin made it 2-1 at 9:49 of the second period with a one-timer at the right side of the net off a backhand pass from Vinnie Hinostroza.
Kyle Okposo extended the lead to 3-1 at 15:45 with a shorthanded goal. He scored with a backhand off his own rebound after his initial pass attempt on a 2-on-1 was blocked by Chris Wideman.
"Obviously, when you have a four-minute power play, you hope to create momentum, create a goal, create something, and we did the opposite," Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin said. "I made a bad pass to Nick (Suzuki) in his skates and it turned into a 2-on-1, 2-on-2, and they scored. It was a bit of a momentum breaker for us, but it's happening too often."

Thompson made it 4-1 at 3:29 of the third period. After taking a hit from Canadiens defenseman Alexander Romanov in the neutral zone, he quickly got back up and skated into the slot, where he received a pass from Skinner.
"I was a little fired up after I got hit there, so it was a nice way to pay him back a little bit," Thompson said. "It's good. I think when we play with confidence, good things happen. I thought tonight, our whole team did that, played with a lot of confidence, made a lot of good plays with the puck exiting the zone. It's fun to play when you're playing like that."