Mar 16, 2019 2 min read

Andrei Svechnikov and Justin Williams each scored goals, and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Buffalo Sabres 4-2 on Saturday night.

Jordan Staal scored a late goal for his 500th career point, Lucas Wallmark also scored early and Curtis McElhinney stopped 35 shots to help the Hurricanes win their third in four games and keep themselves in playoff position entering the final three weeks of the season.

Carolina bounced back from a 3-0 loss a night earlier at Columbus – one of the teams also in the East’s playoff race – by scoring four straight goals and winning its ninth straight in the series with Buffalo.

Jeff Skinner scored against his former team and Zemgus Girgensons added a late goal to prevent the Sabres from being shut out in four straight games. Buffalo has lost seven in a row and is 0-6-1 in that span.

Wallmark tied it at 1 with 6:08 left in the first, going fully horizontal to stuff in the puck after Jordan Martinook’s shot slipped through Linus Ullmark’s pads. Svechnikov’s go-ahead goal came 67 seconds into the second, when he took a pretty cross-ice pass from Teuvo Teravainen and buried it past the Buffalo goalie.

Williams then added an insurance goal with 2:51 left in the second, when his shot from the boards trickled past Ullmark, and Staal reached his career milestone with a spinning backhand to make it 4-1 with 4:14 remaining.

Ullmark finished with 25 saves for Buffalo, which had captain Jack Eichel back from a two-game suspension for his illegal check to the head of Colorado forward Carl Soderberg last week.

Florida 4, Los Angeles 3: Jonathan Huberdeau scored with 1:56 remaining and the Florida Panthers defeated the Los Angeles Kings 4-3 for their fourth straight win.

Sam Montembeault made 24 saves to win his fourth consecutive start for the Panthers, who are seven points behind Carolina and Columbus for an Eastern Conference wild card with 11 games remaining.