The Buffalo Sabres will be out to rebound from a three-game skid when they begin a three-game road trip through California with a visit to the Los Angeles Kings on Monday.

The Sabres are coming off a 7-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday, a contest in which Buffalo jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period before collapsing in the second, allowing four goals in a span of 5:22, including three in 1:47.

It was the Sabres’ first game since Feb. 1 following the All-Star break. They’re 0-2-1 in their past three games after a five-game winning streak.

“For sure disappointing, but let’s not hit the panic button right now,” Buffalo captain Kyle Okposo said Saturday after the game. “I don’t think anybody in here is going to tell you they played a good game. Once we kind of settle in here, get back into a groove, I think we re-evaluate.”

Sabres coach Don Granato put his squad through a fast-paced practice Sunday in Los Angeles, during which he stopped a drill and made them skate sprints after he was unhappy with the way the session started, per The Buffalo News.

He also tweaked the forward lines, with Dylan Cozens moving up to center Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch while Tage Thompson was flanked by Casey Mittelstadt and Okposo.

“The issue that we had (Saturday), it’s not going to be solved with strategy. It’s going to be solved with work ethic,” Granato said. “That was the message before practice, that we were going to have probably our hardest practice of the year. It was right up there with it.”

The Sabres have been very much at home on the road, going 15-7-2 away from Buffalo. They’ve been especially comfortable when traveling through the Western Conference, with a 10-1-2 record as the visitor against those opponents.

The Kings will try to build off a 6-0 shellacking of the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday, their fourth win in the past six games (4-1-1).

Los Angeles was bumped down from second place in the Pacific Division to the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference on Sunday thanks to a Seattle Kraken victory. The Kraken, Edmonton Oilers and Kings all have 65 points.

Pheonix Copley has been a big part of the Kings’ push, going 16-3-1 since making his Kings debut on Dec. 6. The 31-year-old’s efforts between the pipes earned him a one-year, $1.5 million contract extension on Friday.

“My mindset was just to try and earn an opportunity and see where it took me,” Copley said. “I’ve always had the confidence that I can win games at this level and it’s hard to get an opportunity. … Once that came, just see what would happen and do my best to make the most of it.”

At the other end of the ice, Adrian Kempe has been on a roll of late, with 15 points (11 goals, four assists) in his past 11 games. He has six goals in his past two games after notching four against the Penguins on Saturday, and he leads the Kings with 26 on the season.

–Field Level Media

This has been a season of adjustment for Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett.

On Monday night, Bennett and the Panthers will open a four-game road trip by visiting the Minnesota Wild in Saint Paul, Minn.

Bennett, who scored a career-high 28 goals last season in his first full campaign with the Panthers, has thrived despite some changes around him.

First, interim coach Andrew Brunette was replaced by Paul Maurice, who brought in a more structured system.

Then Jonathan Huberdeau, who had a monster year and led the Panthers last season in points (115) and assists (85), was traded, and Anthony Duclair, who scored a career-high 31 goals, ruptured his Achilles tendon in the summer.

Suddenly, both of Bennett’s linemates were gone.

“With Duclair and Huberdeau, it was all speed,” said Bennett, who has just 14 goals in 54 games this season. “Now it’s more in-zone plays — grinding it out. It’s a different game, more battles.”

To be fair, Bennett still has excellent linemates — Matthew Tkachuk, who leads Florida in assists (46) and points (73), and Carter Verhaeghe, who tops the team in goals (28).

Those two have helped Bennett, 26, tie his career high in assists with 21. Bennett has plenty of time to smash that personal best, and he needs just 15 points to get a career high there, too.

In other words, other than his goal-scoring number declining, it hasn’t been too bad for Bennett, who has quickly earned respect from Maurice.

“(Bennett) is one of those throwback guys,” Maurice said of Bennett, who was Calgary’s first-round pick, fourth overall, in 2014. “He says about 10 words a year, and he works his (butt) off every shift.”

The Panthers lost 5-3 to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday but have won three of their past four games. They will face a Wild team that is coming off a 3-2 shootout win over New Jersey on Saturday.

Minnesota is 1-1-0 so far in a seven-game homestand.

Since Jan. 7, however, the Wild have lost nine of 15 games. During this span, they have suffered three losing streaks of three games apiece. They also have one three-game winning streak.

The Wild have one of the top-rated farm systems in the NHL, and the latest evidence of that is winger Matt Boldy, who tallied 24 assists as a rookie last year and already has 21 in this campaign.

Third-year pro Kirill Kaprizov set a Wild franchise record last season in goals (47) and points (108). He leads the team in both categories again this season, posting 29 goals and 62 points, including a team-high 33 assists.

Kaprizov, 25, Boldy, 21, and goalie Filip Gustavsson, 24, are all part of Minnesota’s core.

Gustavsson, who beat the Devils on Saturday, is 12-8-1 with a 2.25 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage. He’s paired with 38-year-old Marc-Andre Fleury, who is 16-12-3 with a 2.98 GAA and a .902 save percentage.

Gustavsson was asked about Minnesota’s three-game losing streak that he helped end on Saturday.

“I’ve been on losing streaks before with previous teams, and the best way to do it was just try not to feel the pressure,” Gustavsson said.

On Monday the Wild will likely face Panthers starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky (14-14-2, 3.13 GPA, .903 save percentage).

–Field Level Media

Despite losing back-to-back games in overtime, the Arizona Coyotes take a five-game point streak into the final meeting of their three-game road trip as they pay a visit to the Nashville Predators on Monday night.

The streak includes impressive home wins over St. Louis (5-0) and Minnesota (3-2) but also three overtime road losses to Anaheim (2-1), Chicago (4-3) and Saturday night at St. Louis (6-5).

It will be the third game in four nights for Andre Tourigny’s squad, which blew 2-0 leads in both Friday’s loss to the Blackhawks and Saturday’s contest against the Blues before scoring late in the third period to force overtime and garner a point.

Nick Bjugstad scored the tying goal with 2:27 left at Chicago before Caleb Jones scored the winner in overtime. The Coyotes, who surrendered five consecutive goals to St. Louis after taking a 2-0 first-period lead on Saturday, battled back to score three goals over the final 10:13 with Lawson Crouse scoring the tying goal with 57 seconds left after goalie Karel Vejmelka had been pulled for an extra attacker.

Ryan O’Reilly scored the winning goal 1:02 into overtime for the Blues, but Tourigny was still happy with his team’s comeback.

“We came back strong in the third,” Tourigny said. “It was urgent. … Everybody was focused on coming back in that game and playing well. Today was a good day.”

Arizona played the game at St. Louis without star defenseman Jakob Chychrun, who was a healthy scratch for what the team said was due to “trade-related reasons.” The Los Angeles Kings, Boston Bruins and Calgary Flames are among the teams reportedly interested in acquiring Chychrun before the March 3 trade deadline.

“We have a job to do,” Tourigny said. “(Chychrun) is a great guy, a guy we like in the locker room, but there’s a situation there that concerns him, our GM, our organization, obviously, and his agent. It’s their job to deal with it, not my job.”

Nashville has won four of its last five and is in fifth place in Central, four points behind third-place Colorado and also four points behind Minnesota, which holds the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

The Predators enter Monday coming off a 2-1 overtime victory at Philadelphia on Saturday. Matt Duchene scored the game-winner with a wrist shot from the high slot off a drop pass from Ryan Johansen 34 seconds into the extra period while Juuse Saros stopped 23 of 24 shots.

“I thought I might have had a chance to beat their guy wide and take it to the net, and he did a good job of skating back,” Johansen said. “By doing that, though, it gave (Duchene) a little time and space just to drop it to him and get a shot off, and he took over from there and got it done.”

Left wing Filip Forsberg, who leads the Predators with 19 goals, had to be helped off the ice late in the first period following a check by Philadelphia defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen. Forsberg didn’t return.

“It could be anything the way that he went down,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “I have not talked to the trainers. They just let me know that he wasn’t going to finish the game.”

–Field Level Media

Shea Theodore, Phil Kessel, Jack Eichel, Michael Amadio and William Carrier each had a goal and an assist and the Vegas Golden Knights scored five times in the third period to cruise to a 7-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas.

Paul Cotter and Brett Howden also scored goals for Vegas, which increased its Pacific Division lead to three points with its third consecutive victory. Reilly Smith and William Karlsson each added two assists.

Adin Hill made 23 saves for the Golden Knights to improve to 5-0-1 all-time against the Ducks.

Isac Lundestrom had a goal and an assist and Frank Vatrano also scored for Anaheim. John Gibson, coming off a franchise-record 53-save performance in a 6-3 loss to Pittsburgh on Friday, finished with 32 saves.

Vegas, playing its first home game since a 6-2 victory over Washington on Jan. 21, took a 1-0 lead at the 2:08 mark of the opening period when Cotter one-timed a rebound from the right circle inside the near post for his 10th goal of the season.

Howden extended the lead to 2-0 midway through the second period with his second goal of the season and first since Oct. 18 at Calgary when he fired in a wrist shot into the top left corner from the edge of the left circle.

Anaheim cut it to 2-1 at the 16:03 mark of the period when Vatrano chipped in a rebound of a Lundestrom shot. It was his 13th goal of the season and seventh in the last 10 games.

The Ducks had a chance to tie it early in the third period when Ryan Strome skated in on a breakaway but Hill turned aside his wrist shot with his left pad.

Vegas then broke the game open with two goals in the span of 91 seconds. Theodore got the first at the 6:40 mark with a one-timer from above the circles past Gibson’s glove side for his fifth goal of the season.

Shortly after Anaheim’s Kevin Shattenkirk hit the post on another breakaway try, Kessel made it 4-1 when he tapped a rebound into a wide-open left side of the net for his 11th goal of the season.

Eichel increased the lead to 5-1 with his 17th goal of the season at the 11:53 mark. Lundestrom cut it to 5-2 with his second goal of the season but Amadio and Carrier responded with goals just 79 seconds apart to give Vegas five goals in a period for just the second time in team history.

–Field Level Media

After one of their biggest victories of the season, the Calgary Flames look to keep their scoring touch going when they visit the Ottawa Senators on Monday.

The Flames trailed 2-0 after the first period of Saturday’s game with the Buffalo Sabres, then quickly took the lead with three goals in the opening 4:04 of the second frame. Calgary went on to score four more unanswered tallies in a 7-2 win that matched its highest goal total of the season.

Outshooting Buffalo by a 40-23 margin, the Flames displayed the kind of scoring efficiency that has eluded the team for much of the season. Calgary ranks near the NHL lead in shots (1,451), yet is near the bottom of the league in shooting percentage (8.9 percent).

“It’s still a bit of a relief to be able to score goals back-to-back in a short period of time,” Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. “We’ve had a hard time doing that. … It’s not about the number of goals you score, but when you can do it. You score two or three quick ones, that makes a big difference in the game.”

Jacob Markstrom stopped 21 of 23 shots, ending a personal 0-3-2 winless drought for the goaltender. The Flames have been largely altering Markstrom and Dan Vladar over the last month, so it isn’t clear if Markstrom will get another start Monday.

The win ended a two-game (0-1-1) winless drought for the Flames and improved their record to 2-1-1 in the first four games of its five-game road trip. Ottawa is the final stop on a trip that bridged the NHL All-Star break.

The Senators entered the break on a four-game winning streak, but their return to the ice Saturday resulted in a 6-3 home loss to the Edmonton Oilers. With the game tied at the second intermission, Ottawa allowed three unanswered goals during the third period.

Beyond the scoreboard, the larger concern was an injury to Anton Forsberg, who had to be stretchered off the ice late in the third period. Edmonton’s Zach Hyman was shoved onto Forsberg’s lower body during a scramble in front of the net, leaving the Ottawa goalie in obvious pain.

Senators general manager Pierre Dorion said Sunday that Forsberg suffered MCL injuries in both knees, and will be out indefinitely.

Mads Sogaard played the final 5:23 of the game in relief of Forsberg. It was Sogaard’s first NHL game of the season and only the third of his career, yet the 22-year-old might now be the Senators’ top option in net for the foreseeable future. Goalie Cam Talbot is also on injured reserve, and hasn’t played since suffering his own in-game lower-body injury on Jan. 25.

Ottawa coach D.J. Smith admitted that Sogaard is “in a tough spot here. But you know what, sometimes you get forced into these things and you find out in a hurry. He’s a good goalie, so he’s going to get his opportunity if clearly (Forsberg) can’t go.”

Defenseman Jake Sanderson also left Saturday’s game early and will miss the next 10-14 days with an upper-body injury.

Ottawa’s Claude Giroux has 10 points (six goals, four assists) during a six-game points streak. The 35-year-old has goals in five consecutive games, matching the longest streak of his 16-year NHL career.

–Field Level Media

Erik Karlsson had a goal and two assists for the visiting San Jose Sharks in a 4-1 win against the Washington Capitals on Sunday afternoon.

Karlsson has 73 points (18 goals, 55 assists) in 54 games, keeping him on pace to become the sixth NHL defenseman to score at least 100 points in a season.

Tomas Hertl and Alexander Barabanov each had a goal and an assist and Kaapo Kahkonen stopped 12 of 13 shots for the Sharks before leaving with an upper-body injury late in the second period. Aaron Dell replaced him and stopped all eight shots.

Evgeny Kuznetsov scored and Charlie Lindgren made 29 saves for the Capitals, who were coming off a 2-1 win at the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon, becoming just the second team to win in regulation at TD Garden this season.

The Sharks scored on their first shot of the game after forcing a turnover in the neutral zone.

Jonah Gadjovich made a quick pass ahead to Evgeny Svechnikov at the Washington blue line. Svechnikov skated into the left circle and beat Lindgren with a wrist shot on the short side for a 1-0 lead at 2:54 of the first period.

The Sharks made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at 9:04 of the second period.

Karlsson made a pass to Hertl at the inside edge of the left circle and he redirected the puck toward the Washington net. The shot was blocked in front by Trevor van Riemsdyk, but Barabanov scored the rebound.

Kuznetsov cut to the net and scored at 16:56 of the second period to trim the lead to 2-1.

Kuznetsov made contact with the head of Kahkonen, who stayed down on the play and was eventually replaced by Dell, who was recalled from San Jose of the American Hockey League on Saturday because James Reimer was ill.

Karlsson made it 3-1 at 12:55 of the third period when he flicked the puck toward the net from off the wall and above the right circle and it fluttered over the shoulder of Lindgren.

Hertl scored into an empty net with 2:11 left for a 4-1 lead.

–Field Level Media

Jaden Schwartz scored two goals to lift the Seattle Kraken past the host Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 on Sunday.

Jordan Eberle had one goal and one assist and Eeli Tolvanen added a goal for the Kraken, who snapped a three-game losing streak.

Alex Wennberg contributed two assists. Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer made 15 saves.

Owen Tippett had one goal and one assist for the Flyers, who have dropped two straight. James van Riemsdyk and Patrick Brown each added one goal.

Tippett and van Riemsdyk each had shots blocked in the final 10 seconds.

Flyers goaltender Felix Sandstrom stopped 17 shots.

Schwartz’s second goal, at 1:03 of the third period, gave the Kraken a 4-2 lead. His shot landed just under the crossbar and over the line.

Philadelphia’s Tony DeAngelo skated in and ripped a backhand on goal at 6:57, but Grubauer cut off the angle.

Seattle tightened defensively from there and allowed few scoring chances.

After Travis Konecny was whistled for delay of game at 16:10, Brown scored short-handed to close the Flyers within 4-3.

Sandstrom was then pulled for an extra at 18:25 and the Flyers had numerous solid scoring chances, but they couldn’t convert.

Philadelphia tied the game at 2-2 when van Riemsdyk redirected a shot from the point by Tippett at 3:33 of the second period.

Schwartz snapped a shot just high over the net at 9:59.

Schwartz then put the Kraken ahead 3-2 at 18:59 with a clean shot from the slot.

The Flyers had only 10 shots on goal through two periods.

The Flyers went ahead 1-0 at 2:11 of the first period when Tippett connected on the power play.

The Kraken equalized at 12:53 when Eberle capitalized on a Flyers turnover and recorded his 11th goal of the season.

Seattle stayed aggressive and took a 2-1 advantage at 17:01 when Tolvanen ripped a shot over Sandstrom’s glove and just inside the post.

–Field Level Media

Alex Belzile scored his first career NHL goal and Jordan Harris recorded his first career two-goal game as the host Montreal Canadiens held Connor McDavid off the scoresheet and claimed a 6-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday.

Goaltender Jake Allen sparkled while making 29 saves, including seven against McDavid, who saw his point streak snapped at 15 games.

Josh Anderson, Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Christian Dvorak also scored for the Canadiens, while Evgenii Dadonov and Jonathan Drouin both collected two assists.

Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane replied for the Oilers, who went into the game on a 9-0-2 run. Goalie Stuart Skinner stopped 24 shots.

Belzile, a 31-year-old forward, spent five seasons in the ECHL, two tiers below the NHL, in a long climb to Montreal. He opened the scoring at the 8:14 mark of his 20th big-league game.

Harris doubled the lead when he ripped a sharp-angled shot from below the left circle at 3:54 of the second period, and then Anderson’s power-play goal on a rebound, his 15th tally of the season, made it a 3-0 count before the game’s midway point.

Draisaitl’s power-play goal put the Oilers on the board at 12:22 of the frame, earning him a fifth consecutive 30-goal season, before Kane made it a 3-2 game with five minutes remaining in the period when he buried a long shot for his ninth of the season.

However, the Canadiens regrouped and Harvey-Pinard’s power-play goal with 79 seconds left in the second period, his sixth of the season, restored a two-goal edge. He has scored six goals in nine games since being summoned from the minors.

Harris notched his second of the game, and third of the season, about three minutes into the third period, and Dvorak added a short-handed goal, his eighth goal of the season, midway through the period to round out the scoring.

The Oilers were without forward Klim Kostin due to an injury suffered in Saturday’s road win over the Ottawa Senators. Montreal lost defenseman Arber Xhekaj after he appeared to injure his right hand in a second-period fight.

–Field Level Media