BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres really needed this one.

Yes, the Sabres put themselves in a strong position with their torrid three-month stretch of play. And no, their three-game winless streak wasn’t as bad as it appeared at times. But this game against the Kraken still felt like a big one after the way the Sabres played in a 5-2 home loss to the Red Wings on Friday night.

When the Sabres fell behind 2-0 to the Kraken, it was fair to wonder when they would snap out of it. The playoffs are all but a certainty at the moment, but that doesn’t mean the Sabres were comfortable with the way their game had fallen off in the last week. An overtime loss to the Ducks on Sunday to end a strong road trip was easy to brush off, especially considering the comeback the Sabres had in that game. A sluggish game against the Bruins in the first game back from the road trip wasn’t ideal, but they also fought back in that game and ended up with a point. The Red Wings’ loss was the most worrisome of the bunch and created some urgency to snap the skid.

It took a two-goal comeback, a hard-fought overtime and a shootout, but the Sabres managed to come from behind and beat the Kraken 3-2 on Saturday night.

“I think it was kind of a big thing for the team tonight to show and play some better hockey,” Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said after stopping 32 of the 34 Kraken shots he faced. “Not necessarily that we’ve been playing bad, but we’ve been slipping lately. Just proving to ourself again that sticking to our own gameplan and I think from the first period on we were on top of the game tonight.”

The Sabres didn’t get off to a hot start in this game. Midway through the first period, a Bowen Byram turnover while exiting the zone led to a Chandler Stephenson goal the other way and put the Sabres down 1-0. In the second period, Sabres center Sam Carrick had the tying goal on his stick and rang a shot off both posts. The goal horn briefly went off, but the refs quickly and correctly waved it as no goal. On the next faceoff, Bobby McMann went the other way and scored on the rush to put Seattle up 2-0.

It felt like another game might get away from the Sabres at that point. But two minutes later, Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin scored a power-play goal to get them right back into the game. All night, the Kraken played a tight game, limiting the Sabres to seven high-danger chances at five-on-five, a low number by their standard.

Then, midway through the third period, the Sabres broke through when Zach Benson drew multiple defenders over to him and slipped a pass to Peyton Krebs, who finished the play with a goal. That tied the game at two and helped the Sabres drag it into overtime and eventually a shootout. They left no doubt from there with Tage Thompson and Jack Quinn scoring in the shootout and Luukkonen stopping both Kraken shooters.

After the game, Benson handed off the team’s MVP of the game wrestling belt to Krebs. Krebs grabbed it and said simply, “Good win. Let’s have some beers.”

Sabres fans probably could have used one after the week of hockey they watched. But the Sabres fought through an inevitable rough patch and are still 13-2-2 in their last 17 games. They have a two-point lead on the Lightning in the division, but Tampa has two games in hand still. And now the Sabres’ magic number to clinch a playoff spot and end this painful drought is down to seven points gained by them or lost by the Red Wings and Senators.

Before the Sabres could worry about any of that, though, they needed to snap out of the funk they were in. Maybe a win like this one, ugly as it was at times, can help them do that.

“The battle by our guys tonight was big enough to overcome anything in the game that could’ve kept us from winning.

Quick hits

1. Luukkonen was the Sabres’ most valuable player on Saturday night. The Sabres got off to another sloppy start and needed Luukkonen to make a few big saves to keep the game close early. He stopped a breakaway early in the second period and then made another huge save on the penalty kill later in that period. He ended up stopping all eight of the high-danger shots he faced and stopped 32 of the 34 shots he faced overall. He also stopped both Kraken attempts in the shootout.

Since the Olympic break, Luukkonen has played in nine games and has a .925 save percentage to go with a 2.21 goals against average. Jeremy Swayman is the only goalie who has played at least nine games and has better numbers than Luukkonen. By comparison, Alex Lyon has played eight games and has a .893 save percentage and 2.60 goals against average. And keep in mind it was Luukkonen who battled through the wildness of the Sabres’ 8-7 win over the Lightning and still has that post-Olympic break stat line.

The Sabres don’t need to rush into a playoff goalie decision. Whoever has the hot hand now might not have it in mid-April. But it’s clearly Luukkonen at the moment. And he’s rising to the occasion in pressure situations. This was a game the Sabres badly needed, and Luukkonen helped them claw back into it.

2. Ruff once again decided to go with Logan Stanley and Conor Timmins as his third defensive pair in this game. Michael Kesselring dressed for warmups but was scratched for a ninth straight game. The pair of Stanley and Timmins had some hairy moments. Timmins threw a risky pass in front of Buffalo’s net, but the Sabres avoided danger. He later fanned on an exit pass, and Luukkonen bailed him out with a big save. After that play, fans in the crowd started chanting, “We want Metsa!” referring to 27-year-old rookie Zach Metsa, who got sent back to the AHL this week after a strong stretch of games.

Stanley ended up with seven penalty minutes in this game. He got into a fight with Jamie Oleksiak to answer for a massive hit he laid on Kraken forward Shane Wright earlier in the game. He then got a questionable goalie interference penalty when he was driving the net on a scoring chance.

Stanley and Timmins weren’t on the ice for a goal against in this game, and the penalty kill was a perfect 4-for-4. But there were some close calls for that pair. It feels like a reasonable time to give Kesselring another chance.

3. Before the game, Ruff said he wants to see slumping forwards Ryan McLeod and Josh Norris get to the inside of the ice more and get more pucks to the net. Norris got one shot on goal in this game and McLeod didn’t get a shot on goal, though he did hit a crossbar. He now has just one shot on net in his last seven games.

The Sabres will need more from their two middle-six centers in the playoffs. And that’s when it gets even more difficult to get to the inside areas in the offensive zone.