The Hurricanes outshot the Sabres 15-4 during the second period and pulled ahead on goals from Andrei Svechnikov and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Svechnikov picked the near-side corner with a well-placed one-timer on the power play; Kotkaniemi buried another one-timer to finish a long shift in the Buffalo end.
“We got hemmed in the D-zone a couple times there,” Thompson said. “You get tired and it takes you a couple (shifts) to get your wind back, then you’re just trying to get the puck out to have energy to play offense. It gets you on your heels and that’s kind of what happened to us a little bit in the second.”
Alex Lyon stopped a pair of breakaways later in the period to hold the score at 3-1, and Conor Timmins nearly cut into the deficit with a shot that rang the post in the final seconds.
The Sabres came into the third period intent on being aggressive, which worked against them when Robinson got behind the defense and buried his breakaway backhand attempt to extend the lead to 4-1 during the opening minute.
Buffalo controlled play from there, however, scoring twice on the rush but ultimately falling short of a comeback.
“I think you look at that game as a whole, obviously the loss sucks,” Thompson said. “But I think you play that way as a group 82 games you’re gonna find yourselves on the right side of things.”
Here’s more from the loss.