Skinner, Peterka spark Sabres in win against Wild 

BUFFALO -- Jeff Skinner and JJ Peterka each had a goal and an assist for the Buffalo Sabres in a 3-2 win against the Minnesota Wild at KeyBank Center on Friday.

Henri Jokiharju scored, and Devon Levi made 33 saves for the Sabres (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 had a goal and an assist, and Mats Zuccarello had two assists for the Wild (5-7-2). Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves.

“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.”

Jokiharju gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 18:02 of the first period on a shot from the blue line that beat Gustavsson through traffic.

Kaprizov one-timed a cross-ice pass by Matt Boldy on the power play to tie it 1-1 at 19:30.

Skinner put Buffalo ahead 2-1 with a breakaway deke to the forehand at 19:02 of the second period.

“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.

The Wild had their chances in the second, outshooting the Sabres 14-6. Levi got a piece of Marco Rossi’s backhand in front on a 2-on-1, and Kaprizov later hit the post from the bottom of the right circle.

“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.”

Peterka made it 3-1, finishing off a three-way passing play with Skinner and Tage Thompson at 3:33 of the third period.

Joel Eriksson Ek scored a power-play goal on the backdoor at 12:27 for the 3-2 final.

“I think there’s just a lot of calm in our game,” 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.”

NOTES: Spurgeon played 21:52 in his season debut after missing the first 14 games with an upper-body injury. … Eriksson Ek scored his 100th career goal (435 GP), the 11th in Wild history to do so. … Kaprizov tied Andrew Brunette for the fifth-most goals (119) in franchise history. … Buffalo is 32-0-4 since the beginning of last season when leading after two periods; only the Dallas Stars (37-0-2), Wild (33-0-3), and Columbus Blue Jackets (13-0-3) have stayed unbeaten in the same scenario. … Matt Savoie, the No. 9 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, played 3:55 in his NHL debut.