Avalanche hold on against Sabres

BUFFALO -- Colin Wilson had a goal and an assist, and the Colorado Avalanche held on for a 5-4 win against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Sunday.
Alex Kerfoot, Tyson Jost, Gabriel Bourque and Matt Nieto scored, and Jonathan Bernier made 28 saves for the Avalanche (30-21-4) who went 1-2-0 during a three-game road trip.

"We needed that one," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "At times it was a little bit of a strange game… but I liked our overall effort. I liked that we did a couple good things offensively, we got to some rebounds in front of the net and punched some pucks home. It wasn't pretty, but it's a big win for our team, no question."
WATCH: [All Avalanche vs. Sabres highlights]
The Avalanche moved to within two points of the Minnesota Wild for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
"It's big," Wilson said. "We're without quite a few players right now and I think the guys did a good job of stepping up, certain players in certain roles, so we'll be going back to Denver with the same mindset."

Ryan O'Reilly had a goal and two assists, and Robin Lehner made 22 saves for the Sabres (16-30-10), who were without center Jack Eichel
who is out indefinitely after sustaining a high-ankle sprain
in the first period of their 4-2 win against the Boston Bruins on Saturday.
"We're going to have to simplify our game," Sabres defenseman Marco Scandella said. "Losing a guy like Jack, first of all, he's a leader in our room, and he's a great player. So, losing a great player like him is tough. Guys are going to have to step up. We're going to have to simplify our game and work a little bit harder."
Kerfoot gave Colorado a 1-0 lead 43 seconds into the first period when he one-timed a pass from Wilson on a 2-on-1.
Benoit Pouliot tied it 1-1 at 7:57 with a shorthanded goal.
Nieto scored at 9:19 to make it 2-1 when he scored shorthanded on a breakaway after Rasmus Ristolainen couldn't hold the puck in the Avalanche zone along the boards.

Wilson extended the lead to 3-1 with his fifth goal of the season and 100th of his career at 1:07 of the second period.
"It's cool to get No. 100," Wilson. "It's a personal accomplishment and I'm pretty happy with it, but I want to have quite a few more goals in my career."
Sabres defenseman Casey Nelson made it 3-2 at 13:15 with his first NHL goal when he gathered his own rebound and his wraparound attempt deflected off Erik Johnson's leg into the net.
Jost made it 4-2 at 3:05 of the third period when he put a rebound off a Tyson Barrie shot past Lehner on a power play.
"We stressed a lot this morning when we were talking about our video is just trying to create havoc and get pucks to the net and just execute better and I think we did that today," Jost said.

Bourque scored to make it 5-2 after Lehner couldn't handle a backhand shot from Anton Lindholm, and Bourque put the loose puck past him at 7:03.
"That's his job is to defend leads like that and kill penalties and for him to be chipping in offensively is what we need right now, especially when we're shorthanded," Bednar said.
O'Reilly made it 5-3 with a power-play goal at 12:14, shooting under Bernier's arm from the right circle.
Evander Kane made it 5-4 at 17:08 when Scandella's shot from the point hit his skate, and Samuel Girard knocked the puck into his own net.

Goal of the game

Kerfoot's goal 43 seconds into the first period.

Save of the game

Bernier's save on Scott Wilson at 3:07 of the second.

Highlight of the game

Nelson's goal at 13:15 of the second period.

They said it

"That's what good teams do, they find a way to win and we did that tonight. It's exciting and we needed to find a way to win on the road, and we didn't like our last two games and we knew we could be better. I thought we really did that today, and I thought we stuck to the details in our systems… We weren't really executing it the last two games and tonight I thought we did that. Just not getting too high or too low, it was a roller coaster of emotions tonight and it was a lot of ups and downs and I thought we handled it well." -- Avalanche forward Tyson Jost
"I think Ryan had a terrific game. You could see he was prepared. He was willing to go to the hard areas. He was doing everything right and got rewarded for that… He did everything he could do to try to help us win the game." -- Sabres coach Phil Housley on Ryan O'Reilly

Need to know

O'Reilly got his 400th NHL point on his assist on Nelson's goal in the second period. He has five points in his past four games (three goals, two assists)… Bourque has three goals in his past four games.

What's next

Avalanche: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday (9:30 p.m. ET; ALT, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV)
Sabres: Host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; MSG-B, SUN, NHL.TV)