Coyotes Fall to Sabres in Buffalo on Monday

STATS

Michael Kesselring and Michael Carcone scored, and Karel Vejmelka made 33 saves, but the Arizona Coyotes dropped a 5-2 game to the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Monday.

Kyle Okposo, Eric Robinson, Peyton Krebs, JJ Peterka, and Rasmus Dahlin scored for the Sabres, who won for the second time in three games. Devon Levi made 21 saves to earn his fifth win of the season.

Okposo opened the scoring 2:25 into the game, shooting home Robinson’s rebound to make it 1-0 Sabres. 

Kesselring tied it up at 3:01 of the second period with his first NHL goal, beating Levi five-hole following a pass from Logan Cooley. The 23-year-old has one goal and five assists in 11 games this season.

"I knew Cools saw me right away so I didn't even need to call for it. I knew he was going to make the play,"  Kesselring said. "I kind of just blacked out a bit there, I played college hockey against Devon Levi, so that was pretty cool.

"It's obviously a special one for me."

Robinson scored at 6:14 of the second to restore Buffalo’s lead before Krebs one-timed a shot past Vejmelka midway through the middle frame to make it 3-1. Peterka’s goal at 15:06 of the second gave Buffalo a 4-1 lead.

Carcone made it 4-2 with his team-leading 14th goal at 12:47 of the third period, a shorthanded tally that came just moments after a 4-on-4 ended, but the Coyotes were unable to gain any additional ground and Dahlin iced the game with an empty-netter at 18:55.

"We could not make a play," head coach André Tourigny said. "Our execution wasn't there."

The Coyotes are back in action on Tuesday, wrapping up their three-game road trip against the Penguins in Pittsburgh in the second of back-to-back games.

"That's the best thing that can happen to us," Tourigny said of playing again on Tuesday. "Pittsburgh is a really good team who plays really well, they haven't gotten the results they've wanted since the start of the season, but if you look at their underlying numbers they're pretty good. We know they're stingy defensively, they create a lot of offense.

"That, for us, will be an opportunity to have urgency and show our character tomorrow."

Puck drop is scheduled for 5 pm MST, and the game will be broadcast on the following networks:

WHERE TO WATCH:
• Antenna: 61.1 Phoenix, 9.2 Tucson
• Phoenix Cable: Cox 95
• Phoenix Satellite: DirecTV Channel 61, Dish Network Channel 61
• Bullhead City / Lake Havasu: Optimum channel 6
• Flagstaff: American Cable channel 4, Optimum Cable channel 6
• Maricopa: Orbitel channel 11
• Pinal County: Mediacom channel 13
• Prescott: Sparklight channel 61
• Sedona: Optimum Cable channel 6
• Show Low / Winslow Sparklight channel 61
• Tucson: Cox channel 85, Xfinity channel 1179, Orbitel channel 208

WHERE TO LISTEN:
• Radio: ESPN 620
• Stream: Arizona Coyotes App, NHL Mobile App