Postgame Hat Trick: Sabres 5, Wild 4

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 5-4 loss against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y. on Friday night:

1. Bounces go to Buffalo
Make no mistake: Minnesota didn't play a perfect game by any stretch on Friday night. But perhaps two of the biggest chance plays in the game went against the Wild, including the first goal of the game, and the tying goal in the third period.
After digging out from a 2-1 deficit to start the third period, Minnesota got goals from Kevin Fiala and Kirill Kaprizov 99 seconds apart to take a 3-2 lead five minutes into the third period.

All seemed well, and Minnesota was in control, until the second funky bounce of the night went the Sabres way when Tage Thompson dumped a puck innocently down the right-wing wall. Unfortunately for the Wild, it bounced off the skate of a linesman and right back towards the slot, where it was scooped up by Jeff Skinner.
Kaapo Kahkonen, who had retreated behind the goal to play the puck, was in scramble mode, as were the two Wild defensemen, who couldn't wrestle control of the puck away from Skinner. He finally gained control, and with Kahkonen down and out, fired into an open cage, knotting the game at 3-3.

Skinner would score again four minutes after that, whiffing on an initial shot and giving Buffalo a 4-3 lead that it wouldn't relinquish.
"Obviously it's not ideal. We were trending the right way," Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon said of the bad bounce. "That's something we can't blame it on. It's still a tie game at that point. We have to go back at them."
In the first period with the game scoreless and the Sabres on the power play, Dmitry Kulikov did what every defenseman does on a shot from the point: block it before it gets to the goalie. He did just that, only to see it bounce right to Casey Mittelstadt on the back post. The Eden Prairie native had a wide open cage to shoot into and he didn't miss, giving the Sabres an early lead.

"We do everything right," Kahkonen said. "We block a shot and it lands right on their stick on the far post there. Obviously we want to be better on special teams, we want to be really good on both of them, but yeah, right now, I think it's every game there's a bounce or even two that just goes well for them and we seem not to get one of those."
Buffalo would add an empty-net goal late to make it 5-3 before Kirill Kaprizov would score his second of the night, again with Kahkonen on the bench for the extra attacker, with 31 seconds remaining.
Minnesota would get another possession in the offensive zone but couldn't find the equalizer.

"Clearly we didn't get some bounces but obviously we didn't do some right things when we had the lead," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "When we had the tie game on the road, we should have been able to look after that. But yeah we got a couple bad bounces for sure. But it happens."
2. Hartman stays hot
After snapping a seven-game goal drought with a pair of tallies in Philadelphia on Thursday night, Ryan Hartman kept on going Friday in Buffalo.
With the Wild down a goal late in the first, Hartman took a pass from Kaprizov high in the slot, turned and whistled a shot through traffic, off the far-side post and past Sabres goaltender Craig Anderson for his 22nd goal of the season at 15:25 of the first.

All but one of Hartman's goals this season have come at even strength, with his 21 even-strength goals leading the club and ranking eighth in the NHL.
"We're going one game at a time and obviously we grinded last night," Evason said. "Tonight we played a lot of good hockey in tonight's game. We played hard. A lot of the areas we played right so we'll take a lot of positives out of this as well."
3. More on Kirill
Kaprizov extended his point streak to four games with an assist on Hartman's goal and now has 42 helpers on the year, just eight shy of Pierre-Marc Bouchard's franchise record of 50 assists. With 29 games left in the regular season, there would seem to be a decent chance that record goes down at some point.

He'd add a pair of third-period goals and now has 26 in that category as well. Kaprizov's 68 points on the season rank tied for fourth in the NHL and is already seventh-most by a Wild player in franchise history.
Like Hartman, Kaprizov has been impactful at even strength too, as his 51 even-strength points is tied for second in the league.

Loose pucks

• Spurgeon finished the night with two assists
• Fiala had a goal and an assist
• Jonas Brodin and Alex Goligoski each tallied a helper
• Freddy Gaudreau had one assist and is averaging a point-per-game over his past 10
• Matt Boldy had an assist
• Kahkonen stopped 33 of 37 shots faced
• Mittelstadt and Kyle Okposo each had a goal and an assist
• Rasmus Dahlin had two assists
• Craig Anderson finished with 29 saves

Dan's three stars

1. Jeff Skinner
   2. Kirill Kaprizov
   3. Casey Mittelstadt

Highlights