GLENDALE, Ariz. -- On a night when the Arizona Coyotes showed it is important to play to the very end of any game, the Buffalo Sabres managed to win mostly because they played to the very end of a period.

Kyle Okposo scored with one second remaining in the first period to swing the momentum and start Buffalo on a run of five consecutive goals, and the Sabres kept the Arizona Coyotes winless at home by taking a 5-4 decision Thursday night.

Benoit Pouliot had two goals and an assist, and Ryan O'Reilly added three assists to support Robin Lehner, who stopped 25 shots despite giving up three Arizona goals in the final eight minutes. The Pouliot-O'Reilly-Okposo line totaled eight points to help fend off the Coyotes' late comeback attempt.

"It was like pond hockey out there, there were a lot of high-end chances both ways," Lehner said. "But we didn't panic, and we got a big win. That's what I liked, I didn't feel like we were panicking even though they scored a couple back-to-back there."

Antti Raanta made an uneven return to net -- and it showed -- as the Coyotes fell to 0-5-1 at Gila River Arena and an NHL-worst 1-12-1 overall.

Raanta, who sat out nine games with a lower-body injury, made 26 saves but couldn't fend off a succession of odd-man rushes in which Pouliot, Seth Griffith and Evander Kane scored.

"It was a comedy of errors, two-on-ones, two-on-ones, two-on-ones," a frustrated Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. "We decided to play in the third, and of a sudden it works."

Only it was a little too late by then.

Arizona played a strong first period and scored the opening goal for an NHL-best 10th time in 14 games. Oliver Ekman-Larsson put a wrist shot past Lehner from the low slot off Max Domi's drop pass 13:25 into the period.

Domi got his 100th NHL point.

The game shifted dramatically after the Coyotes, playing sloppily in their own end, allowed Pouliot to grab a rebound of O'Reilly's shot off the end boards and slip it to Okposo in the right circle. Okposo scored his first of the season with only nine-tenths of a second showing on the scoreboard clock.

"I knew we didn't have a lot of time left, but once Benny got it, I saw two guys kinda go right to him, and he made a great play," Okposo said. "I was just trying to get it on net, and it found its way in. That goal really seemed to give us momentum, and we had a good second period."

Once again, the Coyotes gave up a big goal almost immediately after scoring one.

"You've got to play for 20 minutes," Ekman-Larsson said. "We've talked about that before."

The Sabres (4-7-2), clearly lifted by the late goal, took the lead for good when O'Reilly grabbed a loose puck and fed Pouliot for on an undefended tap-in 4:20 into the second. Griffith finished off a three-on-one break by putting a backhander under the crossbar at 14:36 of the period.

"We were able to dictate the play in the offensive zone more so than in games past," Okposo said of the five-goal outburst.

Kane and Jack Eichel kept the offense rolling by working a two-on-none short-handed breakaway 6:16 into the third, with Kane getting his team-high seventh goal. Later in the period, Pouliot got his fourth of the season and second of the game to make it 5-1 before the Coyotes got late goals from Zac Rinaldo -- his first for Arizona and first in 43 NHL games -- and Nick Cousins and Christian Dvorak.

"The ending was tough," Pouliot said. "We got a bit lazy. I don't think we panicked, I just think we might have thought the game was over before it was over."

It seems that every game this season winds up with a tough ending for Arizona.

"There are four or five individuals who have to understand what it takes to win, and it's my job to get these guys to understand that and, obviously, I haven't done a good-enough job," Tocchet said. "There were a couple of guys there tonight, I didn't like their game."

NOTES: Sabres G Robin Lehner is 3-0-0 against Arizona. ... Sabres RW Justin Bailey (lower-body injury) sat out. ... Arizona waived D Adam Clendening, who has played for six NHL teams since being drafted in 2011. ... Coyotes D Niklas Hjalmarsson was out with an upper-body injury that could sideline him for Saturday's game against Carolina. D Dakota Mermis, called up from AHL Tucson, played his first NHL game in his place. ... Neither team was called for a penalty until Buffalo D Matt Tennyson went off for hooking 11:07 into the second period. ... Arizona is the last team in the NHL without a home-ice win.