BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Tage Thompson and the Buffalo Sabres entered their first-round series against Boston being questioned over their lack of playoff experience.
Turns out, they needed just over 52 minutes of game time to get the hang of it.
Drawing upon the never-quit identity the team forged in vaulting from last place in the Eastern Conference standings in early December to winning its first Atlantic Division title, the Sabres marked their return
to the playoffs after a NHL-record 14-season drought with a big bang.
Thompson scored twice as part of Buffalo’s four-goal surge over the final 7:58 of regulation in rallying the Sabres to a 4-3 victory in Game 1 on Sunday night.
“I think eight years of adversity is enough experience to get you ready for something like this,” said Thompson, referring to the frustrations of spending his first seven seasons in Buffalo without a playoff berth.
“There’s just a heightened feeling of hunger. You don’t want to let this opportunity slip,” added Thompson, who led the team with 40 goals. “I thought tonight was really important to make a statement and set our standard.”
Game 2 is at Buffalo on Tuesday night.
It took two-plus periods for the Sabres to finally wear down the Bruins in an outing Buffalo dominated the offensive attack but had nothing tangible to show for it in trailing 2-0 after Elias Lindholm converted a rebound 68 seconds into the third period.
The script finally flipped with Buffalo’s forecheck causing two turnovers in Boston’s zone to set up Thompson’s two goals, scored 3:42 apart to tie the game at 2 with 4:16 left in regulation.
Mattias Samuelsson scored 52 seconds later, and Alex Tuch sealed the victory with an empty-net goal, before Boston’s David Pastrnak scored with seven seconds left.
“I told them right after the game, ‘You want experience? You got it now,’” said Lindy Ruff in the second year of his second stint coaching the Sabres. “I mean, what an experience. If you’re going to say this was my first playoff game, you’ve got a great story to tell.”
The Sabres went 5,473 days between playoff games since losing Game 7 of a 2011 first-round series to Philadelphia.
In their first game back, the Sabres became the NHL’s eighth team to rally from a two-or-more goal deficit in the final 10 minutes and win in regulation. And it marked just the second time Buffalo won a playoff game when trailing by two in the third period.
The other time was also against Boston, on Brad May’s first-round series-clinching overtime goal in a 6-5 win in 1993. The outing is celebrated in Buffalo as the “May Day!” game in clinching the Sabres' first playoff series win in a decade, and coined by late Hall of Fame broadcaster Rick Jeanneret.
Chillingly, the Sabres honored Jeanneret, who died in 2023, by having his wife Sandra bang the drum and lead the pregame “Let’s go, Buffalo!” chants. And his family was in the press box, where Jeanneret was honored by having a large frame, featuring his familiar sweater, hung next to the broadcast booth.
Some of the loudest pregame cheers came when fans were shown on the Jumbotron holding up signs honoring the broadcaster nicknamed “RJ.”
The festively charged atmosphere, however, turned to grumbles midway through the third period before Thompson scored. The crowd didn’t let up until well after the game ended.
“It was probably the loudest I’ve ever heard in my life,” goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said. “The fans are the ones who have waited so long. And so I’m really happy that we grinded out a win tonight.”
Bruins coach Marco Sturm wasn’t sure what happened.
“I thought we were in the perfect spot,” Sturm said. “Obviously, with the crowd behind them, they got some life and the game is done. Very unfortunate because my guys played really well. Really well. But that’s playoffs.”
Sturm caused a stir Friday by suggesting the Bruins were bigger and stronger than Buffalo.
What he didn’t count on was the Sabres having the energy to out-last his team.
“I think as a group, we thought we could crack them and roll from there,” Samuelsson said, before noting how it took 31 shots to finally getting one past goalie Jeremy Swayman.
“It’s just death by 1,000 cuts,” Samuelsson said. “You just keep wearing on him, wearing on him until you finally crack him. And we did.”
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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
