Sabres rally past Wild for fifth straight win

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Jason Pominville scored the go-ahead goal with 1:30 remaining in the third period, and the Buffalo Sabres rallied to win their fifth straight game, 3-2 against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

Pominville beat Devan Dubnyk on a backhand from the right face-off circle.
Buffalo (12-6-2) last won five in a row March 19-27, 2012. It was the second comeback win for the Sabres in two nights; they won 2-1 in a shootout at the Winnipeg Jets on Friday.
WATCH: [All Sabres vs. Wild highlights]
"I give a lot of credit to our guys, it just showed the character of this team," Sabres coach Phil Housley said. "The fight and the battle. Obviously the first period didn't go the way we wanted it to go. … With the shortened schedule, overtime [and] shootout (on Friday), you have to go through customs and get in here late and turn around. I give a lot of credit to our guys that they found the energy to get the job done."
Jake McCabe and Rasmus Dahlin scored for Buffalo, which is 6-1-0 in its past seven games.

Zach Parise and Matt Dumba scored for the Wild (12-6-2).
Parise capitalized on a Sabres turnover in the neutral zone and scored unassisted to give the Wild a 1-0 lead at 4:00 of the first period. Parise has 341 goals in his NHL career, the most of any Minnesota-born player.
Dumba scored from the point on the power play at 7:45 to make it 2-0. It was Dumba's eighth goal of the season, second-most among NHL defensemen (Morgan Rielly of the Toronto Maple Leafs has nine). He has scored a goal in each of the past three games.
"When you get a lead early, you definitely think you're going to catch that groove and hopefully fill it up but that wasn't the case tonight," Dumba said. "We should have buried them in the second. That was kind of our setup period but we didn't do what we wanted to. We just let them hang around too long. A team like that, they're going to find a way. There's too much skill. We should have capitalized when we could have."

McCabe made it 2-1 at 14:52 after Dahlin worked the puck through the middle and found him on the doorstep.
Dahlin poked a rebound past Dubnyk (26 saves) at 12:58 of the third period to tie it 2-2.
"It's so easy to play on this team because we always know, if we're down two goals, we know we're going to get back," Dahlin said. "I love to have that feeling."
Linus Ullmark made 37 saves for Buffalo.
"This whole stretch coming up here, we've got six games in nine nights and especially this stretch here, these back-to-backs are probably the toughest I've done in my time in the League," McCabe said. "These are two tough buildings to win in and to pull the wins out like we did, it's just phenomenal and it gives us a lot of confidence moving forward."

They said it

"I give the players credit. It's all them. They're doing the work and it started in training camp. Coming into training camp, our conditioning, our checking detail, I think they're getting rewarded right now for that hard work. It's tough going into Winnipeg and getting two points there, and then getting two points in Minnesota where they've only lost one game (in regulation), they're pretty deadly in this building. We stayed the course, it was much like the game yesterday where we bend a little bit but we didn't break, and that's a credit to our guys." -- Sabres coach Phil Housley
"When you had the 2-0 (lead) and you had the chance to make it three, and then you had another chance to make it three, and then another chance and then you let them hang around. And then the second period when you have 2-1, then (Jason) Zucker has a breakaway and we have some good chances. And then in the third when (Matt) Hendricks missed that in front, I said -- obviously I wouldn't say it out loud -- but I knew we were in trouble." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau

Need to know

Sabres forward Jeff Skinner had a four-game goal streak end. … Buffalo forward Jack Eichel had two assists and has five in his past five games. … Wild center Mikko Koivu had an assist and has six points (two goals, four assists) in a three-game point streak. … Parise passed Dave Christian for the most goals by a Minnesota-born player. Housley is third (338).

What's next

Sabres: At the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, SNE, SNP, ATTSN-PT, MSG-B, NHL.TV)
Wild: At the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday (6 p.m. ET; NHLN, WGN, FS-WI, FS-N+, NHL.TV)