Finally, the Detroit Red Wings felt and looked more like themselves again.

They rallied from an early deficit in their Saturday matinee and finished by celebrating a victory, their first in more than two weeks. Beating the Buffalo Sabres, a team giving close chase for a playoff berth, 4-1, put the Wings back into the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference after a seven-game losing streak pushed them to the outside.

"I thought our sense of urgency was incredible and there was a complete buy-in," goalie James Reimer said after making 25 saves. "When they made good plays or were on the winning side of a few battles, our guys fought back and got back on the right side of the puck. It was a lot of fun."

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Patrick Kane scored a go-ahead goal in the second period, giving the Wings a one-goal lead going into the third period. That's a luxury they hadn't had in more than two weeks, during a skid that began at home on Feb. 29 and worsened on the road and then back at home.

The Wings' best shift in the opening minutes was from their fourth line. Sprong, back in the lineup after a one-game "reset," as head coach Derek Lalonde termed it, skated the puck up ice and passed to Fabbri. He sent the puck to Austin Czarnik, who was able to generate back-to-back shots against Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. A power play near the midpoint didn't generate much in the way of momentum. The Sabres needed just 15 seconds to get something out of their man advantage, with Rasmus Dahlin setting up Tage Thompson for a power play goal at 11:24. The Wings have not scored first in five games, dating back to their March 5 against the Avalanche in Denver.

The start

"In just a broad sense, I think we played a really complete game," Christian Fischer said. "From start to finish, not too many lapses in the D-zone. They didn’t have too many extended shifts in our zone. In between periods, we talked about it — we just felt a different compete level maybe, or a different kind of back to our old ways that you start to feel in a hockey game. I think once we went up 2-1, we felt we were going to win that game."

It was Fischer who scored the tying goal, Sprong who made it 3-1, and Lucas Raymond who hustled to score an empty net goal with 67 seconds to play to secure the first points for the Wings since Feb. 27.

Belly celly

It was the depth scorers that got the tying goal. Andrew Copp sent the puck to Fischer, who came out from behind the net and managed to fire the puck towards the net even as he fell forward.

"Yeah, I meant to do that, for sure," Fischer said, smiling. "No, just a bad a skater. I don’t think he even tripped me. That was a big goal for our team at the time and nice standard goal with me, Copp and (Michael Rasmussen). That’s our type of goal — to the net, cycles, that type of stuff."

It was only Fischer's third goal of the season, but it infused the Wings with some much-needed momentum. They made the next few minutes hard on Luukkonen, keeping the puck in Buffalo's zone and generating a couple shots on net.

"The guys love Christian," Lalonde said. "He plays the right way. They had the Thompson assignment and their job was not to get scored on. For them to get a goal the way they did, second effort, zone time from below the goal line — it was very lifting. We had a really good second period from that moment on."

A lead!

Kane came through with as big a goal as he has scored in the 36 games he has played since joining the Wings in December. Alex DeBrincat had a shot denied, then Shayne Gostisbehere took a shot from the left circle that Luukkonen also turned away. The play was still alive, and J.T. Compher fired a shot that ended with the puck squirting out to Kane, who was in position to net his 14th goal on his 34th shot of the season. It marked the first time since the first period of the Colorado game that the Wings played with a lead, and the first time at LCA dating to Feb. 27.

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from  Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Red Wings' March plummet halted with 4-1 win over Buffalo