BUFFALO, N.Y. _ The angle wasn't pretty.
Wild winger Tyler Ennis was at the top of the left faceoff circle with his back to the net and his skates approaching the goal line.
But he still heaved a backhander at Sabres goalie Chad Johnson.
And it turned out to be the right decision, as the puck went in _ a bizarre goal that fit perfectly in an unpolished effort from both sides ripe with defensive lapses and choppy play. It held up, as the Wild defeated the Sabres, 5-4, at KeyBank Center.
Ennis' goal 8 minutes, 59 seconds into the first period tied the score at 1 after Sabres center Jack Eichel opened the scoring 2:04 earlier.
Former Wild winger Jason Pominville, who was part of that four-player trade in the offseason that sent him and defenseman Marco Scandella to Buffalo in exchange for Ennis and winger Marcus Foligno, jammed at the puck at the post before Eichel finally got it to trickle past goalie Devan Dubnyk.
The play was reviewed, after initially being called no goal, but it did end up counting.
That seemed to spark the Wild.
After Ennis' tally, the Wild grabbed the lead at 12:28 when winger Mikael Granlund finished off a two-on-one rush by wiring a shot by Johnson. Only two minutes later, winger Nino Niederreiter upped the Wild's lead to 3-1 after he tipped a Mikko Koivu shot on the power play to extend his goal-scoring streak to five games.
At the intermission, the Sabres pulled Johnson and replaced him with Robin Lehner and the change appeared to galvanize the Sabres.
They controlled the start of the second and trimmed their deficit only 2:01 into the period when winger Jordan Nolan's shot caromed off defenseman Jonas Brodin and froze Dubnyk.
Buffalo continued to press and looked close to finding the equalizer before Niederreiter snuffed out that momentum. He one-timed a behind-the-net pass from center Eric Staal at the post by Lehner to reinstate the Wild's two-goal lead at 7:57.
That cushion grew to three goals with another power-play tally, this one from Granlund after he tipped a Koivu shot with 4:04 remaining in the second, but the Sabres made it 5-3 at 18:25 on a deflection by winger Sam Reinhart and 5-4 on Nolan's second goal, and unassisted tally at 13:55.
