Wild's good vibes are short-lived after 5-4 loss to Buffalo

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A flurry of goals in the third period served as the remedy for the Wild's rut.

The next night, the same sequence sent the team back to the drawing board.

"I guess what goes around comes around," coach Dean Evason said.

After the Wild eked by the Flyers with a late rally Thursday to end its four-game slide, the Sabres turned the tables with a 5-4 comeback on Friday in front of 8,462 at KeyBank Center that split the Wild's two-game road trip and dealt the team its first regulation loss in Buffalo since March 24, 2012.

Big picture, the Wild has dropped seven of its past nine games.

"It's never over," said goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen, who made 33 saves. "The game takes 60 minutes or 65. Tight game. Came down to a couple of unfortunate plays."

The first one Kahkonen was referring to occurred after the Wild was on the brink of returning home with a sweep.

Trailing most of the evening, the team finally knotted the score at 2-2 on a long-range shot by Kevin Fiala 3 minutes, 20 seconds into the third period before Kirill Kaprizov scored on the power play just 1:39 later to give the Wild its first lead.

But a Sabres dump-in that caromed off the linesman flipped the script.

Kahkonen left his crease to anticipate the puck's arrival behind the net but since it never made it there, spitting out into the slot instead, he was scrambling back into position when Jeff Skinner whiffed on the puck and then made a second whack before eventually burying the rebound into an empty Wild net at 12:20.

BOXSCORE: Buffalo 5, Wild 4

"It's just a desperation play after that," Kahkonen said. "It's really, really unfortunate at that point in the game, and then he fans on the first one. I'm just trying to get there, and it lays just perfectly there for him."

The second stinger was also courtesy Skinner.

After his initial shot was blocked by Dmitry Kulikov, he picked up the puck and roofed it over Kahkonen at 16:40.

"We had everything under control, I felt like, and I did two mistakes there and it cost us the game," said Fiala, who was on the ice for both Skinner goals and had an offensive-zone turnover precede the second. "So, it's on me."

Skinner's second finish, however, didn't stand up as the game-winner.

That goal belonged to Victor Olofsson, whose empty-netter at 18:54 was the difference because with 34 seconds left, Kaprizov scored his second of the evening and the Wild's NHL-leading 15th 6-on-5 goal with Kahkonen on the bench. Kaprizov, who paces the Wild with 26 goals, also had an assist for a three-point night, while Fiala (goal and assist) and captain Jared Spurgeon (two assists) had multi-point efforts, too.

"Clearly, we didn't get some bounces," Evason said. "But obviously we didn't do some right things when we had the lead."

Like in the 5-4 win at Philadelphia, the Wild was behind early.

Casey Mittelstadt capitalized on the power play 8:51 into the game but before the first ended, the Wild retaliated on a Ryan Hartman shot at 15:25 for Hartman's third goal in his past two games. His line with Kaprizov was missing Mats Zuccarello, who was scratched because of an upper-body injury; the Wild hopes he'll play Sunday against the Stars.

By 6:01 of the second, the Wild was trailing again – this time after Kyle Okposo buried a rebound on the power play 6:01 into the second, a goal that emphasized another difficult night for the Wild's penalty kill.

After the Sabres went 2-for-3, the Wild has given up at least one power play goal in 11 of the past 12 games. Buffalo's PK was 1-for-2.

"We're not getting the job done in that area," Evason said.

If it wasn't for Kahkonen, the Sabres could have run away from the Wild.

Not only did he make an impressive stop with his right skate on Peyton Krebs, but Kahkonen also got a piece of a 2-on-0 shorthanded look from Dylan Cozens. Craig Anderson had 29 stops for Buffalo, which has struggled just as much as Philadelphia.

But what worked one game wasn't enough the next.

"We thought we were in a pretty good spot," Evason said. "Teams don't quit. We know that. We don't quit. I don't care where we are, who we're playing. [The] league's real good."