Anton Forsberg makes 45 saves in Senators' 5-1 victory over Sabres

Jan 1, 2024, 03:33 am

OTTAWA, Ontario -- — Anton Forsberg made 45 saves and Ottawa beat the Buffalo Sabres 5-1 on Sunday night in Senators interim coach Jacques Martin's 1,300th NHL game.

Ottawa rebounded from a 6-2 home loss to New Jersey on Friday night.

“If we play the right way we shouldn’t have to bounce back as often as we do,” Forsberg said. “We’ve got to bring it every night and that’s something we’ve got to find as a group. Otherwise, it’s hard to be successful.”

Ottawa won after removing the interim tag and appointing Steve Staios as general manager Sunday. Martin took over as interim coach about two weeks ago after D.J. Smith was fired.

Zack MacEwen and Mark Kastelic each had their first goal of the season and Dominik Kubalik, Jakob Chychrun and Artem Zub also scored to help Ottawa improve to 15-18-0. Thomas Chabot had two assists in his return after missing 12 games because of a leg injury.

“I think our mindset was the right one tonight,” Martin said. “I thought that we competed much harder right from the start and I thought we had good puck control. We had some giveaways, but I think, you know, we addressed it in between periods.”

Tage Thompson scored for Buffalo, and Devon Levi made 26 saves. The Sabres are 15-19-4.

“I felt like I shot 50 shots today and nothing really happened,” Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin said. “That’s how hockey is. You’ve just got to work. You can’t do anything about it. You have to get back to work and you have to get better.:

Ottawa opened the scoring with Chychrun’s power-play goal at 6:51 of the first period. Chychrun one-timed it past Levi for his 200th career point. McEwen made it 2-0, and Thompson countered for Buffalo with 13 seconds remaining in the period.

Ottawa took a 3-1 lead seven minutes into the second when Ridly Greig deked past Rasmus Dahlin and dished a pass over to Kubalik, who got a piece of the bouncing puck. Kastelic scored with 15 seconds remaining in the period.

Zub had an empty-net goal in the third.

Ottawa also made Dave Poulin the senior vice-president of hockey operations and Ryan Bowness associate general manager. Bowness had been the general manager of the Senators’ AHL farm team, the Belleville Senators.

UP NEXT

Sabres: At Montreal on Thursday night.

Senators: At Vancouver on Tuesday night.

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