Alex Tuch hat trick carries Sabres past Flyers

Alex Tuch scored his second career hat trick to help the Buffalo Sabres to a 6-3 win against the host Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.

Jeff Skinner had a goal and an assist and Casey Mittelstadt had three assists for the Sabres (37-31-7, 81 points), who moved to within four points of the Florida Panthers for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, with two games in hand. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 39 saves.

Morgan Frost scored twice and Felix Sandstrom made 23 saves for the Flyers (29-33-13, 71 points), who had their seven-game point streak snapped.

Frost put Philadelphia ahead 1-0 at 16:35 of the first period, scooping up the puck in the right circle for a shot from the faceoff dot that beat Luukkonen short side.

Kyle Okposo connected with 10 seconds left in the period to tie it 1-1, sending a 2-on-1 feed from Peyton Krebs from the inner right circle top corner on the near side.

Tuch took a short drop pass from Mittelstadt and scored under the bar from the slot to give the Sabres a 2-1 lead at 1:35 of the middle frame.

Jordan Greenway tallied for the second time in as many nights to make it 3-1 at 2:40 when he collected a rebound on the doorstep.

Skinner pushed it to 4-1 at 3:46. Mittelstadt sent a cross-ice pass to the uncovered winger for a shot from the right circle. Sandstrom made the save but Skinner kept towards the net to get the rebound.

The three goals were scored 2:21 apart.

Tuch scored into the top of the net from the right circle to extend the lead to 5-1 at 16:02.

But the Flyers quickly responded, with Frost notching his second of the night from the inner left circle just 22 seconds later, cutting it to 5-2.

Travis Konecny, in his return after missing 16 games due to injury, narrowed it to 5-3 from high in the left circle off a Philadelphia faceoff win at 5:11 of the third period.

Tuch completed the hat trick with a short-handed tally from in front at 16:33 to make it 6-3.