With Buffalo pressing in the third, Gustavsson was square to get in front of a one-timer from Jiri Kulich from the inside of the left circle that hit his chest with 3:29 left and was quick to cover the rebound in front. Then with Luukkonen pulled for the extra attacker, Gustavsson stopped Thompson from the top of the slot with 50 seconds left.
“I think [in the] last minute there we had five or six chances where he was post to post with his legs making sprawled-out saves, and we were just jamming away,” Thompson said. “So they did a good job tonight. We knew coming in they’re a team that doesn’t give up much, and I thought we got a lot of Grade-A looks. We’ve just got to convert those into goals.”
The Sabres were coming off four straight on the road, going 3-1-0.
“I think we’re growing as a team,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “I think we understand that you really don’t need to change the way you’re playing. You’ve just got to stay with it. We did it on the road trip. We talked about that after the second period — we’re going to get our looks, we have to take advantage. It might be a screen goal, tip goal, ugly goal. Kind of like the Anaheim goal that got us going (in a 3-2 overtime win Friday) where it slipped behind the goaltender. I think that’s the part I’m most impressed with. We’ve been able to play a pretty consistent style.”
NOTES: Minnesota is 6-0-2 in its past eight road games and tied the Vancouver Canucks (8-0-0 from Oct. 17-Nov. 26) for the longest road point streak by a team this season. … Kaprizov has a 12-game road point streak (nine goals, 16 assists). … Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin was a late scratch because of an upper-body injury. There was no update. … Thompson played 19:43 and had six shots on goal after missing the previous five games with a lower-body injury.