BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – The visiting Buffalo Sabres scored two first-period goals and never trailed en route to a 4-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Friday night, clinching their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series in six games for the upstart Sabres and sending the Bruins packing.
Alex Tuch and Mattias Samuelsson built a 2-0 lead in the opening frame before Zach Benson and Josh Norris added insurance tallies in the third as Buffalo advanced to the conference semifinals for the first time since 2007.
Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin each dished out two assists while Alex Lyon made 25 saves for the Sabres, who won all three games played in Boston in the series.
“To (win the series) on the road — against a team that played so well at home, one of the better home records in the league — I thought our guys dug in and gave us a heck of a game tonight,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said.
David Pastrnak scored the lone goal and Jeremy Swayman stopped 22 shots in Boston’s losing effort.
“We felt the pressure being at home,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm said. “We feel the pressure because we care. We wanted to prove people wrong.”
Buffalo finished 0-for-4 on the power play, while Boston never had a man advantage.
The Sabres needed just 3:25 to score on their first shot and take a 1-0 lead for the third consecutive game. Tuch was open at the top of the crease to net Dahlin’s centering pass from the left circle past a trailing Swayman.
After the game’s first power play ended, Lyon kept the momentum on Buffalo’s side with huge saves in the middle stages of the first period. Among them, Casey Mittelstadt had a break-in attempt and a follow-up after a Morgan Geekie feed sent him ahead of the defense.
“Can’t get much better than that,” Tuch said about Lyon. “He was lights-out. He was in the zone. Attacked every opportunity they threw at him. Steady Eddy. Gives the bench a lot of confidence when you got a guy like that playing the way he was.”
Samuelsson made it 2-0 at 12:26 of the first, sending in a long shot from above the left circle through traffic. The puck sailed past Swayman’s blocker side.
Pastrnak got the second period off to an emphatic start for Boston at 1:54, helping to force a neutral-ice turnover before beating Lyon with a one-time shot off Pavel Zacha’s cross-ice pass on a 2-on-1 rush.
Neither side tallied for the rest of the period, including a stretch of nine-plus uninterrupted minutes. Swayman kept Boston’s deficit at 2-1 by denying close-range shots by Thompson and Bowen Byram during the extended sequence without a whistle.
Lyon made big saves against Geekie and Pastrnak to thwart Boston’s heavy pressure early in the third, helping to set the stage for Benson’s goal at 5:58.
Off a draw in Boston’s offensive zone, Josh Doan beat both Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy to a puck to start the goal-scoring play. While bracing for a hit in the left corner, Doan fired a pass to an open Benson in the slot, where Benson fired home a one-time goal.
Norris punctuated the series victory, hitting the empty net with 3:20 remaining.
“We’re hoping that it’s a long road ahead of us. … We’re going to have to be ready,” Tuch said.
–Field Level Media