Avs survive in Buffalo, win 5-4

In Buffalo Sunday, the Colorado Avalanche held a 5-2 lead in the third period and seemed comfortably in charge.

But the Sabres rallied for two goals in the third but the rally fell short in a 5-4 Avs win.

Five different skaters struck for goals for the Avs.

Colin Wilson, Alexander Kerfoot, Tyson Jost, Gabriel Bourque, and Matt Nieto tallied for the Avs in the win as they snapped out of a skid with the win.

“It’s big,” Wilson said. “We’re without quite a few players right now and I think the guys did a good job of stepping up, certain players in certain roles, so we’ll be going back to Denver with the same mindset.”

With the victory, the Avs moved closer to the second wild card spot in the west.

“We needed that one,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “At times it was a little bit of a strange game… but I liked our overall effort. I liked that we did a couple good things offensively, we got to some rebounds in front of the net and punched some pucks home. It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a big win for our team, no question.”

Jonathan Bernier made 28 saves to pick up the win.

Ryan O’Reilly, Benoit Pouliot, Casey Nelson, and Evander Kane scored for the Sabres.

“I think Ryan (O’Reilly) had a terrific game. You could see he was prepared. He was willing to go to the hard areas. He was doing everything right and got rewarded for that… He did everything he could do to try to help us win the game,” Sabres head coach Phil Housley said after the close loss.

Colorado improved to 30-21-4 with the win.

[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Sabres highlights]

Robin Lehner made 22 saves in the loss as the offense arrived to late to support his earlier efforts.

“That’s what good teams do, they find a way to win and we did that tonight. It’s exciting and we needed to find a way to win on the road, and we didn’t like our last two games and we knew we could be better,” Jost said after the win. “I thought we really did that today, and I thought we stuck to the details in our systems… We weren’t really executing it the last two games and tonight I thought we did that. Just not getting too high or too low, it was a roller coaster of emotions tonight and it was a lot of ups and downs and I thought we handled it well.”