Sabres goalie Eric Comrie celebrates with Casey Mittelstadt after a 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday in Buffalo, N.Y. Jeffrey T. Barnes/Associated Press
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Rookie Jack Quinn scored during Buffalo’s three-goal second period, and the Sabres beat the slumping Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 on Saturday in a chippy Atlantic Division matchup.
Tage Thompson, Jeff Skinner, Tyson Jost and Vinnie Hinostroza also scored for Buffalo (32-25-4), which matched its win total from last year. Eric Comrie stopped 30 shots.
The Sabres were coming off consecutive losses to Columbus and Boston by a combined 12-4 score. They won two straight meetings against the Lightning for the first time since February 2018, following a 6-5 overtime win at Tampa Bay two weeks ago.
Buffalo is three points behind Pittsburgh and four behind the Islanders in the race for the two wild-card berths in the Eastern Conference.
The Lightning dropped to 0-3-1 in their last four to mark the team’s longest skid since losing four straight a year ago. Tampa Bay, coming off a 5-4 overtime loss to Pittsburgh on Thursday, has been outscored 21-11 in its losing streak.
Brayden Point, Nick Perbix and Alex Killorn scored for the Lightning, and Brian Elliott stopped 29 shots.
ISLANDERS 4, RED WINGS 1: Anders Lee scored two of New York’s four third-period goals, helping the Islanders beat visiting Detroit.
New York improved to 5-2-1 in its last eight games and remained in position for one of two Eastern Conference wild-card berths. Zach Parise and Noah Dobson also scored, and Ilya Sorokin made 22 saves.
Detroit dropped its fifth straight game. Dylan Larkin scored for the Red Wings, and Magnus Hellberg finished with 31 saves.
New York went ahead when Parise and Lee scored early in the third.
Parise got his 16th of the season at 2:11. Sebastian Aho skated the puck into the offensive zone, and then redirected a shot from Kyle Palmieri before Parise cleaned up the rebound.
Lee made it 2-1 when he deflected Hudson Fasching’s shot past Hellberg at 4:39. It was his 23rd goal of the season and No. 235 for his career, tying Bobby Nystrom for ninth place on the franchise scoring list.
STARS 7, AVALANCHE 3: Mason Marchment and Joe Pavelski ended career-long goal droughts as Dallas won at home.
Jason Robertson scored two goals, including a late empty-netter, while Miro Heiskanen, Radek Faksa and Wyatt Johnston also scored for the Stars, who lead the Central Division and are 4-0-1 in their last five games. Jake Oettinger made 32 saves.
Samuel Girard had a goal and two assists and Andrew Cogliano and Evan Rodrigues also scored for the Avalanche, who have allowed seven goals each in two straight regulation losses following a 7-0-1 run.
Marchment went 32 games without a goal since tallying an empty-netter on Dec. 13, 37 games without shooting a puck past a goaltender. He settled a pass from Ryan Suter in the slot and scored on a wrist shot giving the Stars a 4-1 lead at 5:25 of the second period.
Pavelski ended an 18-game drought at 17:42 of the first period about a minute and a half after Girard’s slap shot from the right point pulled Colorado within 2-1. Pavelski also had an assist.
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