Sabres mark return to the playoffs by rallying to beat Bruins

“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.

Sabres honor late broadcaster

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 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.”