RALEIGH, N.C. -- Buffalo will miss the playoffs for a fifth straight season. But the Sabres aren't necessarily playing out the string down the stretch.

Evander Kane and Johan Larsson scored one minute apart late in the third period as the Sabres rallied to defeat Carolina 3-2 on Tuesday night to sweep the season series and keep the Hurricanes winless in their last five.

"What we're trying to build with this group is expectations," said coach Dan Bylsma, who coached the Pittsburgh Penguins for six years and won a Stanley Cup before joining the Sabres this season. "We talk about it before every game, that we have something to prove as a team and we need to expect to go out and win hockey games. That's what I like about our team is our fight. We've shown it before and we kept the fight in this game and we got results."

It appeared as if Carolina (31-28-14) was poised for the win after Joakim Nordstrom scored with 6:20 left -- just six seconds after Carolina killed off a double-minor penalty to Brad Malone, allowing just two shots.

But less than three minutes later, Kane was left alone in front of Cam Ward to score his 20th goal of the season to tie it at 2. Larsson then notched the winner with 2:49 left, his seventh goal of the season as Buffalo (30-34-10) won its 30th game for the first time since 2011-12.

"We stuck with it; we said to ourselves that there was a lot of game left," Larsson said when asked if the Nordstrom goal was deflating. "We got one goal and then we went from there."

It was the fourth game winner of the season for the low-scoring Larsson, matching rookie sensation Jack Eichel for the team lead.

"Right now he's had the knack for scoring the big goal for us but this is the first one where it has been with an exclamation point at the end of the game," Bylsma said.

The Hurricanes, who have allowed just one power-play goal in the last 11 games, killed off the double minor to Malone just before Nordstrom's winner. The left winger took a pass off the rush from Jordan Staal, spun away from Buffalo defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen and beat Chad Johnson with a high shot from the slot.

But then Carolina's young defense broke down in front of Ward and Buffalo posted its second win over Carolina in 10 days.

"We had some good hard-working shifts down low," said Kane, who notched 20 goals for the first time since scoring 30 in 2011-12. "Obviously our second half of the season has been much better than our first half was and we want to take pride on these next eight games we have here and have a good feeling going into next season. We're going to have to be able to win games like this in the future."

"We had a great penalty kill and got some momentum off of it and got a goal to take the lead," Carolina's Staal said, "Maybe we took our foot off the gas, and we made a few quick mistakes and now we're sitting here without any points. They came to work and they stuck with it and we made errors we shouldn't be making."

Carolina is 0-2-3 in its last five, scoring just nine goals in that span.

Carlo Colaiacovo gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead with 7:38 left in the first period on just the team's third shot on goal in the period. His point blast deflected off the stick of Malone and past Ward. It was Colaiacovo's first goal of the season, his first since April 7, 2015, and just his 34th in 468 career games.

Chris Terry tied the score off a rush for Carolina midway through the second period, taking a pass from defenseman Noah Hanifin and one-timing a shot past Johnson for his seventh goal of the season.

NOTES: The Hurricanes are now 6-7-5 without All-Star D Justin Faulk, who has missed more than a month with a high ankle sprain. ... Buffalo rookie Jack Eichel, who scored both game-winning goals against Carolina earlier this season, returned to the lineup after missing Saturday's game with an illness. ... Carolina recalled C Derek Ryan on Monday. He scored a goal in his NHL debut March 1, but was returned to the minors after just two games. ... G Cam Ward eclipsed the 32,000 minute mark in his NHL career on Tuesday night -- all with the Hurricanes. ... The Sabres signed D Casey Nelson to an entry-level contract on Wednesday. Nelson recently finished his junior season at Minnesota State University. The coveted NCAA star reportedly had offers on the table from several NHL clubs.