Thompson pushes goal streak to 4, Sabres top Kraken for 3rd straight win

SEATTLE -- Tage Thompson scored for the fourth straight game to help the Buffalo Sabres to their third win in a row, 3-1 against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on Sunday.

Thompson has four goals and three assists on his four-game streak.

“We’re kind of on a bit of a roll now,” Thompson said. “We’ve got three [wins] under our belt, but we can’t get too high on that. We can’t forget the process that’s gotten us the results.”

Alex Lyon made 23 saves, and Alex Tuch had two assists for the Sabres (14-14-4), who ended their six-game road trip 3-3-0 after starting it with three losses.

“I thought we easily could have made it 3-1 in the first couple of minutes [of the third period],” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “I thought the Thompson line had a couple of really good looks, and really, we didn’t give up any big rush opportunities, played the period the right way.”

Chandler Stephenson scored for the Kraken (12-12-6), who have lost eight of their past nine (1-7-1). Joey Daccord made 20 saves.

“We had our chances,” Seattle coach Lane Lambert said. “I think where we really came up short was we made a couple of mistakes that we can't make.”

Noah Ostlund gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 17:09 of the first period off a 2-on-1 rush with Josh Norris, finishing a give-and-go with a one-timer from the right circle into an open net behind Daccord.

“It was huge,” Ostlund said. “It was a big goal in the game, and it was fun to get the guys going here.”

Said Lambert: “On their first goal, our D stands in, our protocol is our forward has to back him up, and he doesn’t. It’s a 2-on-1. You can’t do that.”

Thompson pushed it to 2-0 off a 2-on-0 rush at 10:08 of the second period. Tuch intercepted defenseman Vince Dunn’s clearing attempt inside the Seattle blue line and sent an area pass to Peyton Krebs at the bottom of the left circle. Krebs one-touched it across the top of the crease to Thompson, who poked it under Daccord’s left pad.

“There are puck bounces that sometimes don’t go your way, bad calls, disallowed goals,” Thompson said of how the Sabres turned around their road trip. “At the end of the day, those are things you can’t control. All you can control is your work ethic, the way you’re competing on pucks, and the intensity we have.”

Stephenson got Seattle within 2-1 with a power-play goal at 12:24, walking down from the top of the circle and snapping a shot that hit the left post, then went off Lyon’s back and in.

“They’re, I think, the second-best penalty kill in the League, so I just tried to get it through quick,” Stephenson said. “Matty [Beniers] and [Jordan Eberle] were there, and fortunate enough to bounce off the back of him and go in.

"It's a hard league. It's hard to stay positive when things are going this way. But I think that's kind of the M.O. right now, is that [wins are] going to come."

Zach Benson added an empty-net goal at 19:14 of the third period for the 3-1 final.

“.500 is not great,” Thompson said of the road trip. “Obviously we want to get better than that, but I mean, it could have easily gone really bad the way we started. So very resilient by our group to find it and turn it around.”