The message from Wild coach John Hynes before a tough road game in Buffalo early Saturday was a simple one: Even with five veteran players – three of them Olympians – sitting at home, there was a way to resume winning. The solution to their recent woes was in sitting inside the visitors’ locke r room at KeyBank Center, adjacent to the frozen Buffalo River. “What I said was we do have guys out of the lineup and…one person’s not going to replace the other one, but there are attributes to the game,” Hynes recounted, after his team built a lead, lost it, then won 5-4 in overtime versus the Sabres. “Guys are going to step up on the power play or penalty kill or 5-on-5, whatever role they’re going to be in, but we have capable players. We have guys that are in our lineup and hockey’s the game we all love, but winning is our business. We’re expected to win, regardless of who’s in the lineup, so we needed to go out there and prove it.” With defensemen Jonas Brodin and Zach Bogosian, and the entire second line of Matt Boldy, Marcus Johansson and Joel Eriksson Ek all back in Minnesota getting healthier, the Wild had little-used newcomers like Hunter Haight (playing his third NHL game) in the lineup. And while Hynes liked the contributions from the fourth-liners, generally, he called upon veterans like Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman and Vladimir Tarasenko to step up and help hold the fort while they wait for reinforcements in the form of that injured quintet’s return. It’s worth noting that Foligno, Hartman and Tarasenko all scored on Saturday, as the Wild won for the first time in more than a week. “We needed those guys to come in. Obviously when you get into some injury issues like that it gives some different guys in your lineup opportunities to play,” Hynes said in praise of the veterans. “It’s not just the guys that might get recalled and get put in that haven’t been playing, so I thought those guys had real strong games and it’s good. They’re three veteran guys that we need to be able to come through for us in this time.” And then there is the continued eye-popping play of Quinn Hughes, who was named the game’s No. 1 star. He had a goal and an assist, and has posted 18 points in the 17 games he has spent in a Wild uniform. His true value to Minnesota will surely be revealed in the spring, when the Wild look to get to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade, but with Vancouver sinking to the basement of the NHL standings, the blockbuster trade is looking like a solid win for Minnesota general manager Bill Guerin after a month. Always seemingly his harshest critic, Hughes seemed less interested in his goal, which tied the game at the end of the second period, and more focused on why it was only his second in 17 games with the Wild. “Honestly I just feel like I’ve had chances to score, Grade-As every game, and it just hasn’t gone for me,” he said. “And there’s years like last year, the year before that, it was going for me. Had a lot of good bounces over the years, and I just feel like I needed one.” In overtime, with a Sabre in the penalty box, the Wild looked like their power play chance to win had gone for naught. Buffalo sent the puck out of the zone with a dozen seconds left in Minnesota’s man-advantage, seemingly killing the penalty, and two Sabres went for a line change. But Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson, seeing the Sabres were switching personnel, stepped up and fired the puck back to the offensive zone, to Kirill Kaprizov. He passed to Mats Zuccarello, who fired the overtime winner. It was the first assist of the season for Gustavsson. On the road, versus the hottest team in hockey, with five players missing, the Wild learned much about what they still have, and what they will need to do, for the time being anyway. “That’s all we wanted to do tonight, we wanted to compete. I think the last three games, I’d say the last two probably, our compete level was subpar,” Foligno said. “You get energy, you just try to do the things right all the time, and you find yourself going into the third period on the road and it gave us a chance. We miss those guys obviously dearly, but we’re not looking at excuses. That’s not the way we are around here.” Related Articles Depleted Wild rally for overtime win in Buffalo No place like road for funk-mired Wild? Wild hit serious turbulence with Jets in town Jonas Brodin injury means David Spacek’s NHL debut for Wild In Hastings this year, Hockey Day Minnesota is a week-long event ...read more read less