Chisholm scored the go-ahead goal on a wrist shot from above the left circle with 17 seconds remaining on a 4-minute power play midway through the third period, but the Sabres tied the game in the final 36 seconds of regulation and won it on Henri Jokiharju’s one-timer from the high slot in overtime.

“Bunch of adrenaline getting in there,” he said. “I was just super hyped to get back in the lineup and play, and like I said, I like to play fast-paced hockey and jump up in the rush, so I thought I was doing that right away.”

One of the reasons the Wild moved on from Dean Evason in late November was the team’s consistently listless starts to games during a 5-10-4 start that cost Evason his job.

Whether that was his fault is a different conversation. The previous season under Evason, the Wild had 46 wins and 103 points, the fourth-best finish in franchise history.

“He can’t do it for the players,” general manager Bill Guerin said six days before firing Evason, “and the players have to buy into what we’re doing.”

One thing certain is that the Wild, despite rolling through ups and downs since John Hynes became head coach on Nov. 28, have been a better team since — 20-13-2 after Saturday’s loss.

As the record would indicate, Minnesota has been better in all major statistical categories under Hynes. Its penalty kill, for instance, was the worst in hockey on Nov. 27 with a 66.7 percent success rate and a league-high 23 power-play goals against in 19 games. Over the next 34 games, the Wild PK ranked 14th — 79.7 percent with 23 goals against.

The power play has been better, too — eighth in hockey with a 23.6 percent success rate before Saturday’s game.

But the improvement that really stands out is the way the Wild have started games, a major issue as the Wild stumbled out of the gate. On Nov. 27, the Wild had given up a league-high 29 goals, and scored 16, third-least in the NHL. Since then, the Wild have scored first 21 times, tied with Boston atop the NHL, and their 31 first-period goals rank 10th.

The Wild have had more than their fair share of injuries this season, but they also had their best run — winning 11 of 14 games in Hynes’ first few weeks — while missing key players. Jared Spurgeon (back/hip) is lost for the season, and Marcus Foligno (lower) and Pat Maroon (back) have missed a combined seven games since the all-star break, but the Wild are as healthy as they’ve been all season and 8-3-1 in their past 12 games.

“I think we’ve played a pretty consistent game, and what I mean by that is we’ve got to have a certain level of competitiveness and willingness to compete at a high level night in and night out,” Hynes said after Saturday’s game. “That’s hard to do, but if you want to win and be a playoff team, that, first and foremost, is important. I think we’ve had that commitment, regardless of who we’ve played, to have that mental and physical competitiveness.”