Eichel has assist in return, Sabres top Blackhawks

BUFFALO --Jack Eichel had an assist in his return and Nick Baptiste scored two goals, including the go-ahead goal late in the third period, to give the Buffalo Sabres a 5-3 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at KeyBank Center on Saturday.
Baptiste scored with 1:56 remaining to give the Sabres a 4-3 lead, deflecting a shot by Marco Scandella for his fourth goal of the season.

"That's what it takes to score goals in this league and to win in this league," Baptiste said. "I was fortunate enough to get to the net and make a couple of good plays."
WATCH: [All Sabres vs. Blackhawks highlights]
Ryan O'Reilly, Benoit Pouliot and Sam Reinhart scored, and Chad Johnson made 34 saves for the Sabres (23-36-12).
Eichel missed the past 15 games with a high-ankle sprain.
"It was just a lot of fun to get out there and play again," Eichel said. "That was the biggest thing. I just really enjoy it. I enjoy playing the game, no matter what time of the year it is, who we're playing, where we're playing. It's just a lot of fun to be out on the ice with these guys. It just feels great to get back out there and compete."
Eichel appeared to tweak his ankle during a power play in the third period and went to the bench in pain, but remained in the game.
"Last year dealing with the injury and what goes with it, you know you're going to tweak it," Eichel said. "It's not an 'if' thing, it's a 'when' thing. You just want to get it to the point where you're not thinking about it on the ice."
The Sabres, who defeated the Blackhawks for the first time since Dec. 11, 2009 - they were 0-9-3 - were eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention when the New Jersey Devils defeated the Los Angeles Kings 3-0 on Saturday.

"It's nice to beat these guys," O'Reilly said. "They're not having the greatest year but still they're a great team with a lot of talent. For us to get this win, it's a huge one for us."
Jonathan Toews, Tomas Jurco, and Jordan Oesterle scored and J-F Berube made 27 saves for the Blackhawks (30-34-8) who remained 16 points behind the Dallas Stars for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

"It's been a common theme here for a while," Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane said. "A lot of the games, it even seems we're scoring the first goal and we can't come up with anything. It's kind of been that way all year. It's disappointing, it would've been nice to get the win here today."
Baptiste tied the game 3-3 in the third period 1:57 after Toews scored his 20th goal, 20 seconds into the period.
Reinhart, who also had two assists, scored an empty-net goal at 19:21 to make it 5-3. He has 29 points (12 goals, 17 assists) in his past 27 games.
O'Reilly gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead at 11:07 of the second period with a power-play goal when he poked in a loose puck after Berube saved a shot by Eichel that was tipped by O'Reilly for his 20th goal.
Jurco made it 2-2 at 14:15 of the second when his shot was saved by Johnson but bounced off Rasmus Ristolainen and into the net.
Pouliot gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 18:10 of the first period when he batted a puck that went off Oesterle.

Oesterle made it 1-1 at 8:15 of the second period he received a backhand pass from Kane for his fifth goal.

Goal of the game

Baptiste's goal at 18:04 of the third period

Save of the game

Johnson's save on Brandon Saad at 3:39 of the first period

Highlight of the game

Oesterle's goal at 8:15 of the second period

They said it

"For the first part of the year we were pretty good and recently we've had, I think, three or four games where we've had leads and didn't come up with points, so that's tough. That's one of those things whether it's predictability, doing the right things with the puck in the right times of the game, a combination of things, taking a penalty with a couple minutes to go, and it's in our net, so it's not the same way all the time." -- Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville
"It's so nice to have him back. Gosh, he's just ... the little things he does when he gets the puck, you feel like the whole building is like, 'OK, what's he going to do?' The other team has to be so sharp when he's out there and it makes us a more dangerous team." -- Sabres center Ryan O'Reilly on the return of Jack Eichel

Need to know

Toews has scored 20 or more goals in each of his 11 NHL seasons. ... Eichel has 35 points (15 goals, 20 assists) in his last 30 games. ... Sabres forward Zemgus Girgensons left the game at 11:19 of the first period with an undisclosed injury.

What's next

Blackhawks:Host the St. Louis Blues on Sunday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, NHL.TV)
Sabres:Host the Nashville Predators on Monday (7 p.m. ET; MSG-B, FS-TN, NHL.TV)