Robin Lehner leads Buffalo Sabres over Ottawa Senators

OTTAWA -- The curse of Robin Lehner continues to haunt the Ottawa Senators.

The Buffalo Sabres goalie remained undefeated in regulation time against his former team with a 39-save, 3-2 victory on Tuesday night at Canadian Tire Centre.

Lehner is 4-0-2 against the Senators since they traded him to Buffalo on June 26, 2015, but that's just a part of the story.

The Sabres (24-23-10) took nine of a possible 10 points in the now-completed season series between the teams, and Buffalo is 6-0-2 against the Senators dating to Jan. 26, 2016, or six months after the trade.

Lehner acknowledged beating the Senators (29-19-6) felt good.

"But every win is nice," he said. "We just want to keep winning. We're going to go to a game-by-game mindset now and not look at the future.

"There's a reason why we're frustrated," added the 25-year old Swede, who called out his teammates for not sticking to the structure after a loss to Vancouver on Sunday.

"The reason why we're frustrated is because we know we're good. We know we have capability on this team. We know the personnel in this room. Just the fact we can pull that off in the third, that's great, but we don't want to put ourselves in that position. If we can learn to play second periods a little better, it's going to be a lot easier down the road."

The Sabres trailed 2-1 heading into the third period and rallied for the victory when Matt Mouslon scored at 51 seconds and Justin Bailey deflected home what turned out to be the winner at with more than 12 minutes to go.

It was the seventh victory for Buffalo when trailing after two periods, tying them with Pittsburgh and Montreal in that category.

"We came in after the second and we weren't discouraged," said Bailey, who was playing his seventh game since being recalled from the minors. "We knew the game was right there. We were doing a lot of good things all night. We just stuck to our game plan."

Ryan O'Reilly had the other Buffalo goal.

Bobby Ryan and Dion Phaneuf were the only Senators to solve Lehner.

Craig Anderson was considerably less busy at the other end of the ice, stopping 22 shots while making his second start in two months.

Senators coach Guy Boucher said his team "threw everything but the kitchen sink" at Lehner.

"You've got to give the opponent credit for what they do also," Boucher said. "You're not alone on that ice surface. They capitalized on their chances and we didn't capitalize on some of the chances that would have made a difference."

Ryan, who also assisted on Phaneuf's goal, finished with six shots and seven hits. One game after being relegated to the team's checking line, Boucher played him "with everyone" during his 18:06 of ice time.

"I thought we deserved a better fate tonight," Ryan said. "I thought the effort was there. We did a lot of good things. I think the one fault is Lenny saw too many pucks. He made a lot of good saves. He's going to make those saves."

Asked if he silenced critics with his performance, Ryan replied. "I don't listen to anybody or hear anything, so I don't care. It's all for naught when you lose. I'd gladly have played 11 minutes and been a minus-1 if we won. I don't care. We lost two points."

Which is often the case when Ottawa plays Buffalo.

"I think they are so aggressive all over the ice it kind of forces us to be smart, it forces us to put the puck behind them," Sabres winger Sam Reinhart said. "I think we can get more consistent at it against other teams because it's been giving us some success."

The Senators' next game is Thursday at New Jersey. The Sabres are home to play Colorado (Thursday), St. Louis (Saturday) and Chicago (Sunday) before their bye week.

"We have three games before the break, take those one at a time, try to set ourselves up, have a bye week and gather some strength and one back for a last push," Lehner said. "This means nothing."

NOTES:

-- Sabres LW Evander Kane was scratched with an illness.

-- Senators D Chris Wideman was scratched with an undisclosed injury.

-- Senators RW Curtis Lazar was scratched for the fourth consecutive game and fifth time in the last seven.

-- Senators RW Chris Neil returned to the lineup after spending the previous two games in the press box as a healthy scratch.

-- Sabres D Taylor Fedun was scratched.

-- Sabres D Zach Bogosian returned to the lineup after missing six games with a rib injury.