At The Final Horn | Skinner scores twice in 3rd to lead Sabres over Wild

A pair of third-period goals from Jeff Skinner set up a comeback victory for the Buffalo Sabres on Friday.
Skinner's goals came 4:20 apart to give Buffalo a lead they wouldn't relinquish in the 5-4 win at KeyBank Center.
Casey Mittelstadt, who has been limited to 14 games this season due to injury, recorded his first multi-point game of the season with a goal and an assist.
Kyle Okposo also had a goal and an assist. Rasmus Dahlin posted two helpers. Victor Olofsson scored on an empty net.
Craig Anderson stopped 29 shots to earn the 299th victory of his career.
Kirill Kaprizov posted three points (2+1) while Ryan Hartman and Kevin Fiala also scored for the Wild.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 33 saves.
Buffalo's power play went 2-for-3 while the penalty kill finished 1-for-2.

How it happened

The Sabres struck first when Mittelstadt potted a rebound on the power play 8:51 into the contest. It was his second goal of the year and his first since December 2.
Hartman's wrister from the top of the slot beat Anderson bar down with 4:35 left in the period.

During Buffalo's second power-play opportunity, Mittelstadt used some nifty stickhandling to enter the Wild zone and fire a shot on goal. Okposo picked up the rebound and made it 2-1 at the 6:01 mark of the second period. Okposo now has 15 goals, his most since the 2017-18 season.
A long shot by Fiala found its way into the back of the net 3:20 into the third period to tie the game.
On the next shift, Buffalo found itself shorthanded when Robert Hagg was sent to the box for holding. Kaprizov tallied at the 4:59 mark of the period to give Minnesota its first lead.
Skinner tied things up with 7:40 when he stuck with the play, initially fanning on an attempt and then putting the puck on goal and then potting the rebound.
Skinner put Buffalo in the lead with 3:20 remaining when he worked his way in on goal and roofed one to make it 4-3.

Olofsson added one with on an empty net with 1:06 left and gave Buffalo some breathing room as Kaprizov scored again with 31.7 seconds remaining. The Sabres held on with some strong play in their defensive zone to seal the victory.

Roll the highlight film

Check out both of Skinner's goals:

Worthy of a mention

With the primary assist on Mittelstadt's goal, Dahlin extended his home point streak to eight games, the longest by a Sabres defenseman since Phil Housley (8 GP, 2x) in 1989-90 (via @PR\_NHL).
Dahlin also tied a career-high with eight multi-point games this season.

Coming up

Buffalo's homestand continues on Sunday with an afternoon game against the Los Angeles Kings. Faceoff is set for 1 p.m. on MSG and WGR 550 with pregame coverage on MSG starting at 12:30.
It's Kids Takeover presented by NY's 529 College Savings Program. A special ticket offer can be found here. Click here for full details of the game.