Sabres defeat Islanders for fourth straight victory

BUFFALO --Jeff Skinner and Tage Thompson each had a goal and an assist, and the Buffalo Sabres extended their winning streak to a season-long four games with a 5-3 victory against the New York Islanders at KeyBank Center on Saturday.

Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Dahlin and Vinnie Hinostroza scored, Victor Olofsson had two assists, and Dustin Tokarski made 19 saves for the Sabres (31-38-11), who are 5-1-0 in their past six games and have scored 26 goals during that stretch.
"It's tough to really put a single thing that's given us success," Skinner said of the offense. "I think each night it's different. Sometimes it's a combination of things, but the fact that it is consistent is probably the best thing for us to grab on to because it's hard to be like that on a consistent basis.
"I think it just comes down to winning battles, if you have to take one part of it. Obviously, you have to make plays and we've got skilled guys, so that's going to come out. To me, it's about winning battles and working together and reading off guys."

Noah Dobson had a goal and an assist, Mathew Barzal and Kieffer Bellows scored, and Ilya Sorokin made 30 saves for the Islanders (35-33-10), who have lost four straight (0-3-1).
"I thought we had a little bit of slow start," New York coach Barry Trotz said. "I thought they were on us early. I thought in the second half of the first period it was even. Second period, we didn't show up, we didn't have the battle. … All the things that you have to do, especially in the second period with long changes and all that, and we didn't do it. We buried ourselves and then we had a push back in a third. We made it a one-goal game, and we needed to be firm for a couple of minutes and keep them on their heels a little bit, and we didn't."
Mittelstadt gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 12:11 of the first period, scoring far side on Sorokin from the right circle on a 2-on-1 with Rasmus Asplund.
"I'm just kind of watching the defenseman," Mittelstadt said. "If he comes to me, I'll slide it over to 'Aspy,' and if he doesn't, I'll fire it. I guess he didn't come to me, so I just fired it and it ended up going in. It felt good."

Barzal tied it 1-1 at 17:09 when he took a cross-ice feed in the left circle from Dobson and shot into the open side of the net to end a 10-game goal drought.
Dahlin put Buffalo back in front 2-1 on the power play at 1:17 of the second period with a slap shot from the blue line.
Thompson made it 3-1 at 4:05 with a one-timer from the left circle off a short feed from Jacob Bryson.
Hinostroza extended the lead to 4-1 at 12:48. Anders Bjork sent a backhand pass to Hinostroza coming up the middle, and he cut to the net before lifting the puck into the top right corner.
Dobson cut it to 4-2 at 8:45 of the third period, skating toward the net from the right side and backhanding the puck over Tokarski.
"He's a heck of a player," Barzal said of Dobson. "Even on his goal, he takes it wide, does it himself because he's an unbelievable skater. It's going to be fun to see him grow. I think he's going to be one of the elite D-men in the League here pretty soon."

Bellows narrowed it to 4-3 at 10:22 when his deflection of a Ryan Pulock point shot trickled through Tokarski.
"We weren't skating, we weren't hard on guys and made it easy for them," Dobson said. "If you give good players good time, they're going to make you pay. It was better in the third, but we've got to play a full 60."
Skinner made it 5-3 at 12:40, poking in a loose puck off a rebound at the right side of the net.
"We give up a goal, they come within one," Sabres coach Don Granato said. "The chatter on the bench is a little nervous but it was a short span of nervousness. I'm thinking of calling a timeout to calm it down, and then I even stopped my own thought. Let's see how we respond, let's allow ourselves to dig ourselves out of this, wanting to see our guys respond, and they did."
NOTES: Dobson has five points (one goal, four assists) in a three-game point streak. … The Sabres have won four straight for the first time since a 10-game winning streak from Nov. 8-27, 2018. … Olofsson had his third straight multi-point game and has eight points (two goals, six assists) in a four-game point streak. … Thompson extended his point streak to six games (nine points; five goals, four assists) and Skinner extended his to four games (seven points; two goals, five assists).