Evangelista's Four-Point Night Powers Predators to 7-3 Win Over Sabres

Led by multi-point efforts from Luke Evangelista (2g-2a), Matt Duchene (2g-1a), Philip Tomasino (1g-1a) and Tommy Novak (1g-1a), the Nashville Predators cruised to a 7-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday at KeyBank Center.
Evangelista led all skaters with four points, and Juuse Saros made 28 saves in goal for the Predators, who improved to 35-26-8 on the season.

THE STORY

Duchene and Tomasino got things rolling for the Predators in the first period. Duchene forced the defense to pull up in transition and created a passing lane to Tomasino, who found the back of the net to give the Preds a 1-0 lead at 11:45.

Duchene doubled the lead at 18:43, receiving a cross-ice feed from Tomasino and firing the puck past Craig Anderson to make it 2-0. Cody Glass left the game after taking a hit from Tage Thompson behind the Sabres net on the play but returned for Nashville in the second period.

Dylan Cozens got Buffalo on the board early in the second, backhanding in a rebound into the net to cut Nashville's lead to 2-1 at 3:36. Novak responded just 24 seconds later, receiving a feed from Evangelista and scoring on a breakaway to help the Preds retake a two-goal lead.

Duchene found the back of the net again for Nashville at 9:58, but the goal was called back after a successful offside challenge by Buffalo. Evangelista then doubled down with two goals in 40 seconds to extend the Predators lead to 5-1. He scored first on a cross-ice pass from Novak at 9:21 before firing home a backhand shot at 10:01.

Ryan McDonagh, playing in his first game since March 12 after missing the last four with an upper-body injury, extended Nashville's lead to 6-1 at 15:52 that led the Sabres to pull Anderson in favor of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

Thompson fired a one-timer on a 5-on-3 power play for the Sabres' second goal of the game at 7:17 of the middle frame. Jeff Skinner tipped in his own rebound at 7:45 of the third period, and Duchene added an empty-net goal for the 7-3 final.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Luke Leads the Way
Evangelista joined Dan Hamhuis (1g-4a on March 4, 2004 at Pittsburgh) as the second rookie in franchise history with four or more points in a game. He recorded three points in a span of 6:01, marking the fastest a rookie has ever done so for the Predators. The previous mark of three points in 6:40 was set by Andy Berenzweig on Dec. 29, 2001 vs. Detroit.
Evangelista was credited with a fourth point in the second period, allowing him to tie the franchise record for most in one period by any player after Filip Forsberg achieved the feat exactly one year ago at Anaheim (2g-2a). Evangelista is the first rookie to achieve the feat with the franchise.

Evangelista now has nine points (5g-4a) in his first 11 career NHL games. He has posted two multi-goal games since making his NHL debut on Feb. 28 after netting his first two career NHL goals on March 6 at Vancouver.
No. 20 for Dutchy
With three points, Duchene now has 34 points (16g-18a) in his last 41 games. He's recorded points in 11 of his last 24 games (10g-10a), tallying multiple points in six of those outings. Duchene now has 13 points (5g-8a) in his last 12 games vs. Buffalo.
Duchene's first-period goal was his 20th of the season, making him Nashville's first 20-goal scorer in 2022-23. Duchene, who tallied a franchise-record 43 goals for the Predators last season, has now reached the 20-goal mark nine times in his NHL career.
Tommy Hockey Strikes Again
With two points (1g-1a) in the win, Novak now has 32 points (14g-18a) in 38 games with Nashville since being recalled from Milwaukee (AHL) on Dec. 19. In a 16-game span since Feb. 18, Novak has posted 21 points (10g-11a), including six multi-point efforts.

Quick Hits

Kiefer Drops Gloves: Kiefer Sherwood (6-foot) dropped Thompson (6-foot-5) at 4:02 of the second period. Both received five-minute fighting majors.
Goalie Point for Juice:Saros recorded his first point of the season (1a) with the secondary assist on Evangelista's first goal. It was the fifth assist of his NHL career.

THEY SAID IT

Evangelista on scoring two goals 40 seconds apart:
"That was a really cool feeling. Buffalo is pretty close to home and [I had] a bunch of family here. And those were key goals. We were only in the second period, so there was a lot of time for them to come back. So to score the two of those on the same shift, it was a really cool feeling."
McDonagh on making improvements from the loss in New York:
"You've got to move on quickly. Obviously, you're not going to play perfectly every night and we felt that [New York game] wasn't a lack of effort or even execution. It was just kind of details within our structure, taking away the good ice and just following where our checks were, and I think we proved that tonight with our offensive chances. We came up with big defensive plays, broke a lot of things up and blocked some shots and that's how you keep the goals against down and give yourself some looks offensively."
Duchene on fighting through roster changes:
"When we made those moves at the deadline and before the deadline we had a pretty skinny roster, but we've had a lot of young guys that have come up and played really well. Evangelista and Novak have been outstanding for us offensively and we've needed that kind of scoring down the lineup. And they've been really good and guys have stepped up; we keep getting guys hurt and guys keep coming out and playing well and we're going to keep going with it. And it shows a lot of character from our older guys all the way down to the youngest guy on the team."
Head Coach John Hynes on adjusting after the loss to New York:
"We didn't want to really overreact to that game. I thought that some details we needed to play with, I think from a defensive structure, wasn't what it needed to be against New York and I thought we had that in our game tonight, right from the start. And I thought that allowed us to get off to a good start, and then we found some offense. I think we checked for offense tonight, which was something we had a big emphasis on coming into the game tonight."

UP NEXT

The Predators will return home to host the Seattle Kraken on Thursday at Bridgestone Arena. The puck drops at 7 p.m. CT, and the game will be broadcast on Bally Sports South, 102.5 The Game and El Jefe Radio.