Nobody is expecting either the Buffalo Sabres or the Boston Bruins to run away with their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
Clearly, the Sabres should be the favorites after a strong regular season, and they have some young star players in Tage Thompson, Rasmus Dahlin, and Bowen Byram, among others, and an experienced head coach in Lindy Ruff, who has seen and done it all at this point.
Just as clearly, the Bruins have a distinctly more experienced team with both David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy boasting Stanley Cup Finals games on their hockey resumes, and with a team that, according to their head coach, is going to readily lean into the nastiness and physical game.
Sturm on the matchup with Buffalo:
“We’re excited. We are bigger, stronger, we are more physical. We just have to be smart. But, we’re going to go after them.” pic.twitter.com/XSoTCx108z
— Bridgette Proulx (@bridgetteproulx) April 17, 2026
Seemingly that is to the chagrin of the Sabres media and fans in Buffalo based on the social media reactions this week and based on the Buffalo players and coaches now being asked to react to what the B’s are doing rather than the other way around.
Reaction from the Sabres after Boston Bruins head coach Marco Sturm said his B’s were bigger, stronger, and more physical going into this first round series against the Buffalo.#NHLBruins
🚨👇👀👇🚨 pic.twitter.com/w7FZAkiCxT
— Mark Allred (@BlackAndGold277) April 18, 2026
But there are areas in both teams where they hold clear advantages, and there may not be a bigger check mark for the B’s than in the goaltending department. Jeremy Swayman is an experienced playoff performer coming off a very strong rebound campaign where he finished with a 31-18-4 record and a .908 save percentage behind a B’s team that was admittedly shaky defensively in front of him at times this season.
“I think there was a lot of growth,” said Swayman of this season. “I think I was where I wanted to be mentally and physically, and it couldn’t have happened without my experiences up to this point. I’m doing to my best to stay in the moment and dive into every game with full intention and full focus and a mindset to get the win.
“I think we can be confident in this room knowing that we have [game] experience at that [playoff] level. And we can have a really joyful aggression knowing that…going into important games knowing we know how to perform and have success against a skilled team like that.”
On the Buffalo side, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Alex Lyon both shared time with pretty solid seasons with the Sabres, but there’s an old adage in the Stanley Cup playoffs that if a team doesn’t have a clear-cut No. 1 goalie in the postseason, then they really don’t have a goalie at all.
UPL should get the net to start the playoff series for his first career Stanley Cup playoff experience, but the Sabres are in that difficult space where a soft goal or two could get everybody talking about a goalie change, and a goalie controversy can take on a life of its own in a playoff series, as we’ve all seen play out many times over.
There will be no such phenomenon with the Bruins as Swayman is going to get the mail for the Black and Gold and posted a sparkling .933 save percentage in his last season for the Bruins, where he spearheaded a series win over the Maple Leafs before ultimately falling to the Stanley Cup champs in Florida.
The 27-year-old has a career
