Minnesota scored twice within the first 2:15 of the contest, the first of which came on a pass from Mikael Granlund to Nino Niederreiter in the slot. Granlund would go on to record three assists on the night, while Niederreiter scored his second career hat trick.
Ristolainen was positioned near Niederreiter when he took the one-time shot from in tight on that first goal, and took responsibility for the mistake of leaving him open. Prior to that goal, the Sabres had actually dominated possession on their first shift of the game.
"We were in their zone, we got some shots," Ristolainen said. "But then I made a mistake there and they got an early goal. That's unfortunate."
Minnesota's second goal, scored by Daniel Winnik, was once again a case of missed coverage. Winnik had both Justin Falk and Nathan Beaulieu in front of him upon carrying the puck into the Buffalo zone, but he was able to split the two defenders and score on an open shot.
Those first two goals foreshadowed how the rest of the night would go for the Sabres. The Wild added another goal on the power play when Ristolainen was assessed a five-minute major penalty later in the period, and then tacked on three more goals in the second.
All of the goals, Housley and Beaulieu agreed, were given to Minnesota with too much ease.
"Just bad reads. Those things are going to happen," Beaulieu said. "On the second goal, I made a bad read. I thought he was going to kick it out and he walked through. It's just situational play. There's nothing to do, we're just playing outside our structure, which I don't know why we did. It sucks to say, but it was just one of those nights."
Robin Lehner was pulled from the net prior to the start of the third period after allowing six goals on 17 shots. Chad Johnson stopped all 10 of the shots he faced in relief, while Sam Reinhart and Evander Kane scored goals in the third period to tighten the score for Buffalo.
Playing from behind was made all the more difficult when the team lost Ristolainen, their leader in ice time, just 10:16 into the game. The call against the defenseman was originally two minutes for interference upon hitting Wild captain Mikko Koivu in open ice. After discussion between officials, it was changed to a five-minute major and a game misconduct.
Housley vehemently disagreed with the decision afterward, and said he was never given an explanation as to who changed the call and why. Koivu sustained a cut to his face on the play, but was able to stay in the game. He went on to score a goal in the second period.
"First of all, it wasn't a late hit and it wasn't interference," Housley said. "The guy had the puck and he was finishing a check, albeit, maybe it was a little high. But when you look at it and you watch the progression of the call, the original call was two minutes for interference. And then their player goes over there to talk to the referees and then they change their mind. I totally disagree with that."
Ristolainen said it was not his intention to hurt Koivu on the play.
"I don't really want to say too much about it," he said. "Unfortunately it happened. Good thing he didn't get injured, and I'm not happy I couldn't help the guys."
Even with Ristolainen, though, the Sabres found themselves in the early hole. With a quick turnaround and a matchup with the Winnipeg Jets awaiting them on Friday, Buffalo's focus after the game was on cleaning up the mistakes that cost them what, if for only a moment, looked like it could be a promising start in Minnesota.
"If you're scored on twice in a game, you need three to win," Beaulieu said. "It's tough to score three goals in this league, especially from our standpoint. We've been struggling to score goals so it's frustrating. We're a team that's got to, unfortunately, take extra, extra detail in our D-zone because we're the lowest-scoring team in the league."
On Thursday, the detail simply wasn't there.
