The big, bad Bruins needed help but didn’t get it, falling to the Sabres in Game 6 4-1. The Buffalo goals were scored by Samuelsson, and Benson, and an empty-netter by Josh Norris to seal it. Alex Lyon played his ass off in net, saving 25 of 26, many of them excellent chances.
For all of their vaunted toughness and strength, there were long stretches of games in this series where Boston was simply outplayed. It wasn’t quite as bad as the 4 goal first the other night, but the Bruins were overmatched all through the opening period. They rallied a bit in the second, getting a goal from Pastrnak on a 2-on-1 with Pavel Zacha that Lyon had no chance on. But Doan raced into the Boston zone early in the third and carried two Bruins players with him, sacrificing his body by smashing into the end boards to pass the puck to a streaking Benson for the gut shot. From that point on, the Sabres played smothering defense, with Boston barely able to get past the blue line.
The Sabres await the winner of Tampa/Montreal (heading to Game 7) to find their next opponent. For me, from here on out they’re playing with house money. They proved they weren’t just a fluke, breaking two major droughts (making the playoffs, winning a series). That doesn’t mean the work is done. Let Lindy send you on your way:
There’s a tendency with Buffalo sports to wait for the other shoe to drop. No matter how the last game went, how the last series went, there’s always a little spot in the back of your mind wondering how it all goes wrong. You wait for the first goal, or that easy Josh Allen TD, to relax. The Sabres delivered tonight in spectacular fashion, scoring *four* goals in the first en route to a 6-1 obliteration of the Boston Bruins. Less than five minutes in, Fraser Minten gives the puck away on the half-wall, and Alex Tuch serves up a sweet pass to Peyton Krebs for the first goal. That set the tone for the first period, where Boston seemed completely unprepared for the pace of play as the Sabres skated around and through Boston. Josh Doan added the second goal on a sweet redirect of a McLeod pass. Two minutes later, Doan steals the puck in the Bruins zone and delivers it to Zach Benson who drives the neat and sneaks it in from beneath Swayman’s pads. The last goal of the first comes on a D to D pass from Owen Power to Bowen Byram, where Swayman’s pads get caught on one of his own players in front of the net, which stopped him from getting across for the play.
Whew, that was a lot! The second period saw Boston wake up and realize the game was at 2pm, but they were unable to get anything past Alex Lyon. This is the time that little spot in the back of your mind makes itself known again. We’ve already had a wild comeback in this series, you know?
But there was no comeback to be had tonight, as Beck Malenstyn tips a Jordan Greenway shot into the net to get to 5-0. This is followed about 90 seconds later by a Thompson feed to Alex Tuch at the front of the net, and it was 6-0. Swayman would be taken out shortly after this, most likely to get him some rest after the abuse his defense allowed him to take. Seriously, none of this was his fault, and you can see him letting his team know here:
Sean Kuraly would break the shutout up with less than a minute to go to get to our final, 6-1. The last notable even was a wicked cross-check/sucker punch combo away from the play by Nikita Zadorov on Rasmus Dahlin:
Lindy Ruff stated after the game that he understands where the emotion comes from (as a man who once flying tackled a goalie who hit him in the face, he should) but to me, this shows me that the Bruins aren’t nearly as tough as they claimed to be. Marco Sturm called his team bigger, stronger, and more physical, and maybe they are, but their mental toughness is in question. The Bruins had no answer for what the Sabres did on the ice tonight, and ended up resorting to cheap shots and message-sending late. It didn’t come off as tough, it read as pathetic. You can contrast it directly with the Game 2 loss from the Sabres. Down 4-0, goalie chased, they clawed their way back with two late goals to make it respectable. At the exact same point in this game, Nikita Zadorov broke his stick over Dahlin.
Game 5 is Tuesday at 7:30 back here in Buffalo. If the Bruins want to show how tough they are, they’ll have to take 2 on the road.
Sabres lose the second game of the series 4-2. And it wasn’t really that close. Listen, was that game hard to watch? Absolutely. The playoffs aren’t over, though. A lot of hockey left to play.
I alluded to the fact that stuff like this used to drive me crazy, even to the point that it would make me grumpy to my family and co-workers. I’ve worked on myself a lot to get past that, but games like this really show you how this can happen. It’s the *way* that they lost. 0 for a century on the power play. Absolutely no juice from any of the star players. The best D-man for the first 50 minutes was Logan Stanley for crying out loud. It’s enough to turn you into the Joker.
Looking at the lineup, there’s a lot of changes that can be made. Alex Lyon was solid in relief of UPL after he gave up the fourth goal, so it wouldn’t shock me if he got a start. They mostly alternated starts in the second half of the season anyway. Guys like Metsa or Schenn are in the mix, Carrick could be back in soon, Noah Ostlund is back at practice. They weren’t going to win 16 straight games for the Stanley Cup. The response in the first 10 minutes of the game in Boston tells the tale.
4-3 Buffalo. Tonight’s game, even with the stressful first two periods, just proves to me that playoff hockey is the best playoffs in North American professional sports. The hitting, the gutsy plays, crazy goalie saves, all of that just drives the energy off the charts. And not just in Buffalo, it’s been electric in every game I’ve watched this weekend.
…and the day (Sunday!) at the time of me writing this we still didn’t know when it starts. Never change, NHL. Anyway, when you’ve been a fan as long as I have (even with a lapse in there), you have reason to dislike almost every team in your conference. And division rivals? FORGET ABOUT IT, we fucking hate those guys. If you’re new to your fandom (and we welcome you!), you might not know WHY we hate the Boston Bruins. So here’s a few reasons. Let me know in the comments/on Bsky which ones I forgot because I’m old.
1. Milan Lucic runs Ryan Miller
For those of us watching since the 05-06 season, this incident is widely considered a massive turning point in the Sabres franchise. The failure to stand up for Ryan Miller as a group got the team labeled soft (rightly or wrongly) and affected personnel decisions for years to come.
If you’ve never seen this chart before (reddit source), it shows the cumulative games above .500 for Buffalo. As you can see, the high point, the spot where the Sabres had been the furthest over .500 in franchise history…was one day before that Bruins game.
2. Boychuk slashes Vanek
Johnny Boychuk delivers a slash to Vanek’s knees, causing him to fall and smash into the boards. Buffalo’s leading scorer missed several games, only able to return for the last in the series.
I assure you, this is only the *first* Marchand hit compilation I found, there are many more. You’ll note that he loves to go for knees (and nut shots). Dirtbag.
Listen, no matter what happens, the Buffalo Sabres are BACK in a real way. Let’s enjoy it (and loudly boo every Bruin who even LOOKS at UPL).
Okay, so last night’s game ended GREAT (5-0!) despite getting heavily outshot in the first two periods. Colten Ellis stood on his head, his back, his elbow, and every other part for his first career shutout while the Sabres offense woke up for 4 goals in the third period.
But honestly? WHO CARES IT WAS SO MUCH FUCKING FUN! The crowd was rocking, singing along with songs, chanting at the terrible officiating (some things never change), and booing Columbus whenever possible.
It wasn’t perfect as I felt like Buffalo wasn’t being physical, and had a little bit of their previous passing problem, but they figured it out in the third. Peyton Krebs opened the scoring in the first, and the lights-out play by Ellis kept that as the winner. Josh Doan scored twice, including an amazing individual effort where he stole the puck right off the stick of Charlie Coyle and fired it home. Jack Quinn scores the next one on a 4 on 2 breakaway, and Doan gets his second moments later on a beauty of a feed by Hobbit/Vampire Zach Benson (seriously, look at any picture of him). Dahlin finished things off with a 200 foot empty net goal.
Buffalo now sits at 106 points, tops in the Eastern Conference. They play in Chicago Monday, and the final *regular season* game of the season if Wednesday at home against the Dallas Stars. What a ride the past few months have been.
Tonight’s game may not have gone well (6-2 loss, Lyon yanked after 3 goals on 5 shots), but you know what? It doesn’t matter. The Buffalo Sabres will be back in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in 14 years. The pic at the top of the post is from a practice/scrimmage the first year of the drought. We had no idea what was coming. “Suffering“, the high expectations of Eichel, and his ultimate failure here, Lindy’s first firing, and so much more. This is what my kids looked like back then:
Now my son’s an adult with a pickup truck, the middle one’s graduating high school, and the youngest is crushing dance competitions. I’d do the same comparison for me but no one wants to see this hairline.
It’s okay to be grumpy with the performance on the day they clinched but things don’t always go the way they do in the movies. Take a deep breath and enjoy the thought of playoff hockey. The 05/06 team had a late season stretch of 6 straight losses before ending the season on a high note. Buffalo hadn’t lost back to back games in regulation since December. The ending hasn’t been written yet; let it happen. And if it doesn’t go our way, know that it doesn’t have to go back to the way it was. They can be good again next year!
(maybe Lindy could bench Logan Stanley though. just a thought)
The Islanders score a late goal to pull within one after giving up an empty-netter, but don’t have enough to beat the Sabres in regulation. Buffalo gets goals from Jack Quinn, Tage Thompson, Peyton Krebs (pictured) and a 198 footer from Bowen Byram into the empty net. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made some dynamite saves, and one of the Islander goals came on a bad angle shot that went in off of Owen Power.
One worrying injury as Sam Carrick left the game after a fight with Anders Lee. Carrick was thrown down to the ice and immediately clutched his arm/shoulder. He was stepping up to get some payback on Lee after the Islander knocked Norris into the boards, but may have paid the price. Hopefully he’s okay, and Buffalo does have the depth if he’s out for a bit.
It wasn’t 100% back to form but I felt like this was a much better game from the Sabres. They were right on the Isles forwards in the defensive zone and were constant pests on the forecheck. They didn’t make a *ton* of mistakes playing the puck, which was the issue during the losses they had recently. Even when it was tied, I never thought they’d lose.
One. Hundred. Points. Hell yeah. Buffalo’s back in action Thursday night in Ottawa taking on the Senators.
So, your favorite team lost. And just after you really got into them (or back in). How rude! It can be hugely frustrating to watch the Sabres make a bunch of mistakes and lose, so how do you put up with it for 80+ games? As someone who in part stepped away from fandom spaces because I couldn’t handle how mad it made me, I have some tips.
Find the good – In even the worst-played game, some fun stuff happens. For example, UPL had some great saves. Maybe the sight of Zach Benson annoying the shit out of some Bruin twice his size makes you chuckle.
Figure out why your coach loves a guy – “Man, why is this guy playing over X?” We’ve all had that thought about some player on our teams. See if you can figure out what Lindy sees in him. Maybe he wants a bigger guy to hit/absorb hits. Or he needs someone he can trust to get out of the zone (heaven knows the Sabres could’ve used better passing last night).
Learn something new – Have you ever really watched line changes? Or faceoffs? What “job” does a certain player have on the power play or the kill? It can be interesting to pay attention to one specific area you don’t often think about.
Years ago, watching a terrible loss or a lackluster effort would’ve driven me mad. I’ve managed to work on that part of myself, and have learned to enjoy the good parts of sports and shake my head and laugh. After all…
Also, if you need a feel-good moment, here’s video of Sabres fans welcoming Rasmus Dahlin’s fiancée back to Buffalo. Carolina Matovac nearly died while on vacation last summer in France, and ended up having to get a heart transplant. She was finally able to return here this week.
ESPN has the full story, but please note that it’s pretty harrowing, and does involve the loss of their unborn child.
Buffalo returns to action tomorrow night against the Detroit Red Wings.
I know, I know. It’s been a minute since a blog with this name existed. How’s your family? A whole heck of a lot has happened around Buffalo sports since I last regularly updated the ol’ sports blog. The Bills are Super Bowl contenders with a generational talent at QB. It’s not all great (we’re still talking about questionable ownership decisions around coaches and GMs) but they are nationally relevant. Ask the version of me writing here back in 2013 whether I thought the Bills would be able to do that (well into a seventeen year playoff drought).
The Buffalo Sabres have gone out of their way to try and match that level of suffering. After firing Lindy Ruff, there was a revolving door of odd choices and coaching retreads (Ted Nolan again, really? Dan Bylsma? Who the fuck is Ralph Krueger?) and somehow they landed back on Lindy. Their playoff drought sits at 14 seasons (18 since they won a round) and the beginning of this season seemed like more of the same. The Sabres were 11-14-4 after a December 8th loss in Calgary, and despite winning a few games at the end of that road trip, the vibes were still bad enough that the GM was canned.
I ended up with tickets to the game (thanks Turkeys for Tickets!) after they got back and went with my daughter. We had an absolute blast and that experience got me paying attention to the Sabres again. Buffalo ended up going on a 10 game win streak, and have only lost back to back games twice in the months since.
That brings us back around to the concept of a bandwagon. Both the Bills and now the Sabres are attracting attention and with that, massive numbers of new and returning fans. There’s an inclination with some people to try and gatekeep, to say “I’ve been here the whole time why haven’t you” but we have to try and push that down. Sports is supposed to be fun, and it’s more fun with more people! Remember parties in the plaza? Packing the building for an open practice? Meeting the team plane at 3am? Why would you want to keep people from that?? Greg Bauch says it well:
Yes. Everyone is welcome. I don't care if the earth tips on its axis from the bandwagon overflow, everyone's welcome. I will haul you up by the cuffs of your jacket to make sure you're safely aboard. If someone makes you feel less than amazing for liking what the Sabres are doing, they're dumb.
We’re about to experience what the Bills and the Bills Mafia experienced back in 2017 – an end to a massive playoff drought. And hopefully like the Bills, the Sabres can carry this forward to many years of relevance. I’d like to end with a line in the post where I talked about bandwagon fans before: “We can’t control the team on the ice or field, or what the media writes, but we are in charge of ourselves. Be happy. Have fun.”
