ST. PAUL, Minn. _ After a 6-2-1 October that saw the Wild shoot an obscene 13.7 percent, things reverted back to the norm Tuesday night as the Wild opened their November schedule.
Working exhaustively to beat big Buffalo Sabres goalie Robin Lehner, the Wild were only able to score once on 28 shots and saw one of their former draft picks score the eventual third-period winning goal in a 2-1 home loss, their first at Xcel Energy Center this season.
Johan Larsson, one of the Wild's three 2010 second-round picks and traded to the Sabres in 2012 in the Jason Pominville package, snapped a 1-1 deadlock with 6 minutes, 26 seconds left in regulation.
It was the Wild's final home game until Nov. 15 as the team hits the road for four starting Saturday in Denver. The Wild only plays once in the next eight days.
The Wild, who went the final 6:07 without a shot, were unable to beat Buffalo for a second time in five games despite the Sabres playing without injured Jack Eichel and Evander Kane and losing defenseman Zach Bogosian in the first period.
Of course, the Wild's ravaged with injuries, too _ Zach Parise, Erik Haula, Marco Scandella and Zac Dalpe. The Wild used an all-Iowa fourth line of Tyler Graovac, Jordan Schroeder and Christoph Bertschy, and coach Bruce Boudreau showed faith in all three by playing them in a tie game in the third period.
It was a frustrating first 40 minutes for the Wild and their fans. Not only did Devan Dubnyk's bid for a fourth consecutive shutouts end almost instantly on a Ryan O'Reilly goal 3 minutes, 16 seconds in, the Wild spent the entire first period looking slow and sloppy.
The second was almost as frustrating for different reasons. The Wild controlled almost the entire 20 minutes, but it took an eternity to get that tying goal past Lehner despite outshooting the Sabres 15-7 in the period.
The Sabres goalie either made some superb saves or the Wild just couldn't connect. There were passes off skates or an aggravating display of unselfishness as Wild players, especially Nino Niederreiter and Charlie Coyle, tried to feather passes only not to get shots off rather than just unleashing pucks at the net.
It was extraordinary how many odd-man rushes the Wild created for itself in the period only to come away with no shots.
Finally, after Mikael Granlund drew the game's first penalty with 3:36 left in the period, Granlund tied the score by pulling the opposing goalie out of his cage for the second game in a row to create an open net for himself.
On the power play, Pominville settled a puck at the blue line, managed to stay onside, fed Eric Staal and Granlund gobbled up Staal's rebound for the pretty equalizer.
Staal extended his point streak to five games on the Granlund goal.
But in a third period where Lehner looked good, the Sabres countered after defenseman Nate Prosser got caught on a pinch. Larsson converted Brian Gionta's center pass.
It didn't take long for Dubnyk's shutout streak to vanish.
After two saves to start the game to bring his consecutive save total to 96 over a 10-day stretch, Dubnyk kicked out the rebound of Rasmus Ristolainen's point shot to defenseman Jonas Brodin a few feet in front of the crease.
During Dubnyk's streak, the Wild defensemen had done a terrific job clearing trouble from the front of the net. This time, instead of Brodin's clear making its way out of harm's way, his attempt toward the wall was stopped by O'Reilly's right skate. The former Colorado Avalanche center settled the puck and easily scored inside the post.
The goal ended Dubnyk's career-best and franchise individual record shutout streak at 183 minutes, 16 seconds and the Wild team-record shutout streak at 184:49.
It was the first time in sixth games the Wild hadn't scored the first goal.
