Buffalo hold off Wild for 3-2 win Skinner, Peterka  lead Sabres in win

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In Buffalo, Devon Levi made 31 saves in the Sabres 3-1 win over the visiting Minnesota Wild on Friday night.

The Sabres grabbed a 1-0 lead on a strike by Henri Jokiharju  at 18:02 of the first period.

Buffalo improved to 7-6-1.

“Hopefully, finding a way to win is going to become a typical way, because we needed to find a way to win tonight,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “I thought specifically in the third period, the determination elevated, you saw it down the stretch. … And Devon played very well obviously, to do that, that’s what good goaltenders do and good goaltending does, and it worked out. I thought it was, in the end, a [heck] of a gut check for our guys, and they pushed through.”

Kirill Kaprizov replied for the Wild with 30 seconds left in the stanza for a 1-1 tie, he scored off the power play.

“We’re used to tight games,” Minnesota captain Jared Spurgeon said. “But when you’re getting those chances and not putting them home, you have to make sure you’re squeaky clean on the other end. Something we’ve got to clean up, but the effort that we had in the offensive zone, I thought we created chances, but we’ve just got to get those looks and make them count.”

Jeff Skinner pushed the Sabres back in front, 2-0 with 58 seconds left in the middle frame off a breakaway goal.

“Great play by JJ, obviously, to sort of anticipate and poke the puck, and then I was able to get behind their [defensemen] because he kind of poked it by them,” Skinner said.

In the third, Buffalo added insurance, which they would need, when JJ Peterka  scored at 3:33 of the third for a 3-1 advantage.

The Wild dropped to 5-7-2.

“Pucks are finding their way in and we’re not finding our way to score goals, hit the posts or whatever at the [other] end,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We have our looks. It’s hard to get real negative, right, because they’re not not trying to freaking score. They’re giving it everything they can to score. We’re getting lots of pucks on the net. We’re getting quality, quality looks and they’re just not going in the net right now. But we could wallow and be [tickled], and of course, we are that we didn’t win, but there’s a lot of good things that are happening.”

The Wild attempted a late rally with Joel Eriksson Ek hitting off the power-play at 12:27 to trim the deficit to 3-2.

“I think there’s just a lot of calm in our game,” the Sabres’ Tage Thompson said. “Regardless of the score, there’s no real panic, frustration. I thought tonight was a perfect example of that. Obviously, 3-2 with a few minutes left in the game, I thought we were pretty rock-solid in the [defensive] zone, no running around.”

Levi held them off the rest of way for the 3-2 final.

Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves in the loss.