Marco Sturm famously got the attention of Sabres fans, media, and players alike by saying just prior to the postseason that the Bruins “were going to go after them” over the course of the seven-game playoff series.
And it looked like they were ready to live up to that by building up a 2-0 lead at the start of the third period in Game 1 at the KeyBank Center and playing so well that the B’s had a nervous Sabres fan base booing at their players at points in the game.
But the Bruins took their foot off the gas after building a 2-0 lead on a handful of strong shifts, then fell into a prevent defense, laying off the forecheck, dropping into a neutral zone trap, and playing conservative hockey to protect their advantage. Instead, the Black and Gold had a disastrous final eight minutes, surrendering four goals in an eventual 4-3 loss on Sunday night.
“The frustrating thing is that for almost 55 minutes we played a perfect game. And then we made two mistakes to let them tie up the game,” said Sturm to NESN following the game. “It’s a tough one. But we did a lot of good things, so we’ve just got to get some rest and get ready for Game 2.
“We had a good forecheck, we protected the middle of the ice pretty good, and we didn’t really give them odd-man rushes. They’re a rush team and they didn’t really get that going. I felt like we made them stop a lot of times and they got frustrated. It’s just really unfortunate.”
With all due respect to the B’s bench boss, it really felt like the aggressive and fairly effective B’s forecheck went away as soon as Elias Lindholm scored the insurance goal early in the third period, and the Bruins stopped trying to make any kind of plays in the offensive zone at that point as well. Perhaps it’s human nature to go into a little bit of a defensive shell once a team is protecting a third-period lead in a playoff game, but it was pretty unmistakable that’s what the Bruins were doing for much of a third period where they were losing the territorial battle.
The conservative approach in the third period for the B’s, along with a superstar two-goal performance from Tage Thompson, completely changed the complexion of the game and made it essentially Buffalo’s to take from the Bruins, with the way both teams played contributing to that eventually going down.
“We hadn’t had any goals against for the first 40 minutes, so when that first one hits, things change a little bit. Maybe subconsciously [we got off our game a little bit]. They’re a good team that’s going to take advantage of any mistakes and they did a good job of that,” said Morgan Geekie. “It’s a seven-game series and everybody is going to say you can’t lose the series in one game. But we’ve put ourselves behind the 8-ball a little bit after this one. We just need to get back to playing our 200-foot game.”
It will be an understatement for the Bruins to feel like this game was a massive missed opportunity, as they were positioned for a playoff win despite being outshot 38-20 by the Sabres, and wasted a very strong goaltending effort from Jeremy Swayman as he made 34 saves while holding the Sabres at bay for 50-plus minutes of the game.
The other part of the loss was a really tough night for
