After a decade and a half of the Bruins feasting on the Buffalo Sabres, the roles seem like they’re now in the end reversed.
That’s actually the best way it seemed on Saturday evening in Buffalo, the place the Bruins noticed their shedding streak attain 5 video games (0-4-1) after they had been dominated for lengthy stretches of the sport by the Sabres and misplaced 4-1.
The Sabres, who’ve now received eight in a row, jumped over the sinking, cement-shoed Bruins within the Atlantic Division standings by some extent.
The sport turned within the second interval when the Sabres scored three objectives and the B’s mustered simply two pictures on internet.
The loss kicked off the five-game highway journey that would very nicely put the B’s playoff hopes in jeopardy already if they’ll’t snap out of this malaise.
“We now have durations the place we play fairly nicely and durations after we don’t. We simply have to stay a 60-minute recreation collectively. We confirmed in every recreation we may be profitable and push groups again. We simply need to be doing it extra constantly,” Hampus Lindholm informed reporters in Buffalo.
After the three-day Christmas break, the B’s arrived for this one with out the good thing about a morning skate, which needed to be a scrapped after they had been delayed by climate popping out of Boston.
However that excuse went out the window with a good opening interval.
The B’s performed an OK opening 20 minutes and got here away with a 1-0 lead and it got here from a welcome supply – David Pastrnak. Elias Lindholm’s forecheck precipitated Bowen Byram to make a foul move that Morgan Geekie picked off alongside the boards. Geekie made a rapid backhand move to Pastrnak, who didn’t play nicely within the B’s loss to Montreal earlier than the break, and the sniper beat Ukka-Pekka Lukkonen along with his fifteenth aim of the season at 11:56.
The B’s practically took a two-goal lead shortly after that when Marat Khusnutdinov, out excessive within the zone, made an excellent move to an open Sean Kuraly, who hit the crossbar.
One other good signal was that goalie Joonas Korpisalo at the least gave the impression to be on his recreation. The Sabres outshot the B’s 13-9 within the first and there have been some excessive hazard probabilities in that baker’s dozen, however Korpisalo – pulled from his final begin towards Ottawa and carrying a sub-.900 save share a lot of the season – saved the Sabres off the board for the primary 20 minutes.
However the second interval was disastrous when the Sabres scored 3 times earlier than the B’s even registered a shot.
The lead didn’t final lengthy into the second, and simply 3:12 into the second interval the B’s had been a deficit.
It began with what seemed like a promising play for the Bruins. Elias Lindholm despatched a stretch move for Geekie that went all the best way to finish boards and bounced out to Geekie. He elected to not shoot and take it across the internet, however he turned it over and the B’s alternative changed into a Sabre rush. From the correct circle, Ryan McLeod beat Korpisalo to the far blocker facet with a shot that will have deflected of Andrew Peeke’s stick at 1:39.
Buffalo took the lead simply 93 seconds later. Alex Steeves turned the puck over on a breakout try. Tage Thompson’s lengthy distance was deflected house by Peyton Krebs and the B’s had been as soon as once more on the chase.
“In the event you have a look at their first aim, we acquired caught. We talked about how they had been primary on the push. We didn’t wish to give them that. We hand over the puck within the offensive zone and it ended up in our internet,” coach Marco Sturm informed NESN. “The second, we had the puck, too, and we couldn’t get it out. They picked it off and it went in our internet. I believe it was simply psychological breakdowns we now have to appropriate.”
Then, when Mattias Samuelsson’s seeing-eye shot discovered its approach behind Korpisalo at 7:54, the B’s discovered themselves in a two-goal gap that they by no means escaped.
What else might go mistaken? Properly, the B’s hadn’t taken any penalties and Viktor Arvidsson rectified that scenario with 1:33 left within the interval when his stick rode up and clipped Samuelsson for a double minor.
The B’s acquired to the horn with out giving up one other one. However it was an unsightly 20 minutes. They had been outshot 11-2 and so they had been one other 2:27 of penalty kill time to start out the third.
They killed off the remainder of it at the beginning of the third however they nonetheless had an extended strategy to climb out off their gap.
The B’s had one final likelihood to get within the recreation with a late energy play however they might not get one other previous Luukkonen. Josh Norris ended it with an empty-netter.
