NHL Recaps: John Tavares leads Leafs, and Sabres hand Pens 6th straight loss

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NHL Recaps:  November 2, 2022

It was an extremely light night in the NHL with just two games on tap.

In those contests were two teams trying to get on track. One was the Toronto Maple Leafs, who snapped a 4 game losing streak (0-2-2) at home. The other team was the Pittsburgh Penguins whose woes continued with another bad loss.

NHL Recaps: John Tavares nets hat trick

John Tavares had three goals and an assist, and the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the visiting Philadelphia Flyers 5-2 on Wednesday night.

Tavares scored his seventh goal of the season on a power play at 15:23 of the third to complete the 11th career hat trick of his career.

“It’s good, it’s been a little while I think, so it’s always nice to get it and you take them all,” Tavares said. “It was a little bit of a different one there on the third one, but any time you have nights like this, it’s a team effort, so many guys contribute and I’m just getting rewarded for finishing plays off.”

NHL.com

Auston Matthews and Zach Aston-Reese also scored for the Maple Leafs, who had lost four in a row. Mitchell Marner and Morgan Rielly each added two assists.

Ilya Samsonov stopped 23 shots for Toronto.

Joel Farabee and Owen Tippett scored for the Flyers, who have lost three straight. Travis Konecny added two assists. Felix Sandstrom made 39 saves for Philadelphia.

NHL Recaps: Penguins fall again

NHL Recaps Sabres
Nov 2, 2022; Buffalo, New York, USA; Buffalo Sabres left wing Victor Olofsson (71) celebrates his goal with teammates during the third period against the Pittsburgh Penguins at KeyBank Center. Mandatory Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

Sabres 6 vs Penguins 3

Alex Tuch scored the go-ahead goal midway into the third period and Victor Olofsson tallied twice to help the host Buffalo Sabres rally to a 6-3 victory over the reeling Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday.

The Penguins blew a 3-1 lead in the third period, watching the Sabres score 5 unanswered goals.

“To give up the goal immediately to fall down two goals, we hadn’t had a good night to that point yet, and then we responded,” Sabres coach Don Granato said.

Buffalo’s Tage Thompson scored his sixth goal in his last three games and rookie JJ Peterka and captain Kyle Okposo also tallied. Eric Comrie turned aside 18 shots to propel the Sabres to their third straight win and sixth in their last eight games.

Pittsburgh’s Jason Zucker scored a goal in the first period, Josh Archibald had his second in as many games and Jake Guentzel added a power-play tally in the third. Casey DeSmith made 27 saves for the Penguins, who have dropped six in a row overall (0-5-1) and are 1-5-1 on the road this season.

“There’s no secret. In a situation like this, it just comes down to finding your way and being determined,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said via NHL.com. “It’s work and finding a way to get out of it. We can’t sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.”

–Field Level Media contributed to this article

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