Devils blitzed in second period in ugly loss to Sabres

BUFFALO — Jeff Skinner got his 29th goal of the season and the Buffalo Sabres scored five times in the second period on their way to a 5-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night.

C.J. Smith, Casey Mittelstadt, Jake McCabe and Lawrence Pilut also scored for Buffalo, which improved to 23-14-6. Carter Hutton made 20 saves.

It was a welcome turn of events for the Sabres, who have struggled with secondary scoring this season.

“I really liked the way our group played,” coach Phil Housley said. “It was a total team effort.”

Blake Coleman scored for the Devils, and Keith Kinkaid made 28 saves.

“We could talk about nine different ways where we weren’t good enough in any facet of the game,” coach John Hynes said. “We all know what it is and it’s not good enough and we’ve got to fix it.”

The Sabres stormed ahead in the second, starting with two goals on their first two shots of the period.

The first came at 1:39 by Skinner. Buffalo’s leading scorer raced down the left wing around defenseman Ben Lovejoy and fired a high shot to the far corner.

Minutes later, Smith raced down the right side of the ice and scored his first career goal with a similar strike at 4:14. Kinkaid got a piece of Smith’s shot but it had just enough to trickle over the goal line before defenseman Sami Vatanen attempted to clear the puck away.

“He attacked the game,” Housley said of Smith. “I just liked how he was poised, he was composed. He found a way to get that one by Kinkaid and it was a big goal.”

Mittelstadt made it 3-1 with 9:18 remaining in the second, snapping a 10-game goal drought. After splitting the Devils defense, the 20-year-old’s backhand shot was stopped but his follow-up went in for his sixth goal of the season.

McCabe made it 4-1 on a short-handed goal with four minutes left in the period. The defenseman finished a 2-on-1 rush after a patient pass from Evan Rodrigues.

Pilut capped the second-period flurry with his first career goal with 2:15 to go on a long shot through traffic.

Coleman opened the scoring on a deflection 1:28 into the game for his 13th goal.

“We’ve got to figure this out,” captain Andy Greene said. “It’s been way too long. It’s on us in here to stick together and play for each other and play hard for each other. That’s the best thing we can do and go from there. We get a little bit of traction here and there and then all of a sudden we have a game like today.”

Buffalo outshot the Devils 33-21.