Ryan McLeod scored three goals for his first career hat trick and the Buffalo Sabres beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2.

Dylan Cozens and Tage Thompson also scored and Jason Zucker had two assists for the Sabres, who won for the third time in four games. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 35 saves. Jaccob Slavin and Martin Necas scored and Brent Burns had two assists in the Hurricanes’ second straight loss. Dustin Tokarski made 20 saves.

The Sabres got a fourth goal in the third period to ice the game — despite not recording a shot on net in the entire period, an NHL first.

Ryan McLeod scored his first-career hat trick and the Buffalo Sabres held on for 4-2 win against the visiting Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday.

The game is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. ET on TNT. Fans looking to watch this NHL game can do so for free by using DirecTV Stream, which offers a free trial or with SlingTV, which doesn’t offer a free trial but has promotional offers available. Max has plans starting at just $9.99/month and includes movies, original series and more.

With a rare 6:00 pm start time, the Hurricanes arrived late to the game and Buffalo did not. The Hurricanes didn’t really get to their game until the third and Buffalo took advantage, getting a three-goal lead before the final frame.

Ryan McLeod scored on the first shot of the game, again in the waning seconds of the second period, and added an empty-netter for his first career hat trick to lead the Sabres in a 4-2 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night at KeyBank Center.

At the end of 40 minutes it was 3-0 and Buffalo got trapped in their end for most of the third. Buffalo got outshot 8-0 and I’d be surprised if they had 60 seconds inside the Carolina zone.