Alexandar Georgiev made a season-high 36 saves, Adam Fox added two assists and the visiting New York Rangers held on for a 2-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night.

The Rangers won for the eighth time in nine games and improved to 12-2-0 in their past 14 games by bouncing back from Wednesday's 7-3 loss to the visiting Colorado Avalanche.

In his third start since Igor Shesterkin was injured against the San Jose Sharks, Georgiev came within 5:23 of his first shutout this season. After a quiet opening 20 minutes, he made 30 saves over the final two periods, including 17 in the third.

Fox notched his 23rd and 24th assists, breaking a tie with Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman for the league lead among defensemen.

Fox got the secondary assist on Mika Zibanejad's power-play goal 4:48 into the game and then registered the primary assist on Alexis Lafreniere's tally midway through the second.

Brett Murray scored for Buffalo, which dropped its sixth straight game. Victor Olofsson had a goal disallowed with 57 seconds left while the Sabres were using the extra attacker when officials deemed Buffalo defenseman Rasmus Dahlin was offside.

After the game clock was reset to 1:26, Georgiev made a diving save on Jeff Skinner with 64 seconds left. He then made another glove save on Tage Thompson with 44 seconds to go.

Buffalo goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 29 saves in sixth career appearance.

Zibanejad opened the scoring when he broke a 14-game drought with his first goal since Nov. 5.

Fox made a pass to Artemi Panarin, whose cross-ice pass caromed off Buffalo center Mark Jankowski's skate and the left post to Zibanejad for the easy tap-in into the vacated left side of the net.

Fox got his second assist when he took a hard wrist shot from above the left circle that went off Luukkonen's pads and to Lafreniere for the easy tap-in from the right side of the crease at 9:47 of the second.

Before getting a two-goal lead, Georgiev preserved the shutout with a sprawling pad save on Zemgus Girgensons' breakaway with 14 minutes left in the second. After Lafreniere scored, Georgiev used his pad to smother an attempt by Tage Thompson with about four minutes left in the second.

Buffalo ended the shutout bid when Murray swept in his own rebound under Georgiev's pads.

--Field Level Media