Mike Harrington: The Sabres are finding a way in the face of some strange numbers

Mike Harrington: Sabres are finding a way in the face of some strange numbers

The Buffalo Sabres are doing a lot of things that normally make you lose a series. But instead, they're winning it. They're a better team, and that eventually shows through.

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The Buffalo Sabres are doing a lot of things that normally make you lose a series. But instead, they're winning it. They're a better team, and that eventually shows through. Having Lindy Ruff pushing just enough right buttons helps, too.

Props to them for squeezing out a 3-1 win Thursday night in TD Garden, wresting back home-ice advantage from the Boston Bruins. There was plenty to like in this one. They weren't going to be denied, even in the hostile environment of a rink where the Bruins won an NHL-high 29 games during the regular season.


Sabres right winger Alex Tuch celebrates his go-ahead goal with teammates in front of Boston defenseman Hampus Lindholm
in the Sabres' 3-1 win in Game 3 on Thursday at TD Garden in Boston. Charles Krupa, Associated Press

They're surviving. Through a lot of, um, stuff.

They haven't scored first in any of the three games.

They've scored one goal combined in the first two periods of each game.

Over the course of 180 minutes, the Bruins have led for 86:22. The Sabres have been in front for a mere 19:21 − and nearly 16 minutes of that total was in the third period Thursday.

They went 0 for 5 on the power play to push their futility to 0 for 14 in the series and 0 for 36 in April. Yes, 0 for 36.

Rasmus Dahlin has one point in the series and, at least on the offensive end, doesn't look close to the same player who had 74 points in the regular season.

They've already switched out goalies, too. Ruff did it at the right moment. Tough to tell Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to grab some bench after one bad period in Game 2, but they have supreme confidence in both. Shake it up, and it worked.

"First couple games, we stayed a little bit too patient, at times," Ruff said. "This game, I thought we had a great first period, especially on the road ... really matched their intensity."

As the series takes a little breather until Game 4 on Sunday afternoon, it's pretty wild to ponder the huge stakes the Sabres will be playing for during that matinee.

Win Sunday, and they get to come home with a 3-1 lead for a chance at a closeout game Tuesday in KeyBank Center. Lose it, and it becomes a 2-2 series that creates an ever-dangerous best-of-3.

"This is not an easy arena to play in. They had a lot of success at home this year," Tuch said. "We wanted that mindset of coming in and just going to work right away. No matter what happens, if they score one or two goals, we just have to keep working, keep going. We have a lot of faith, a lot of confidence in our group. We know we can bury a couple of goals, and we're going to keep pushing towards that. We had to keep playing."

Things looked pretty dangerous in the second period on Thursday. The Bruins had a 1-0 lead, and Victor Arvidsson was awarded a penalty shot on the kind of play that made you wonder what the hockey gods were doing. Mattias Samuelsson's stick plain blew up as he was trying to control the puck; he couldn't kick the disc out of trouble, and Dahlin had to haul down Arvidsson, breaking in on goal.

But Alex Lyon saved the puck − and maybe the day − by getting a piece of it with his blocker. Bowen Byram got the Sabres even 68 seconds later, and they were poised to break through in the third period.

Once Lyon made the save on the penalty shot, and especially once Alex Tuch scored at 4:03 of the third, the shift in the building was palpable. The Sabres were the team on their toes, and the Bruins were holding on.

The Sabres looked much more like the team we saw the last four months than at any point in Buffalo, save for those crazy 6 1/2 minutes at the end of Game 1.

"We just tried to focus on playing our game tonight, making them keep up with us," Byram said. "I feel like the first couple of games, we kind of got "drug" into the mud a little bit, let them dictate things. That was definitely our best game."

"I liked the start of the game," Ruff said. "Those first couple of power plays were really good. We just couldn't get it to go. Our speed, our pace of play, the way our defense was involved, that is our game. And it starts with moving the puck. We made tape-to-tape passes that generate a lot of speed."

As these kinds of series go, going from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon to play again is a long time to wait. It's how things roll in the Stanley Cup Final, but it isn't really the norm in Round 1, unless TV decrees it to be.

The Sabres are spitting in the face of their regular-season numbers, when only 14 of their 50 wins came when they were chasing a 1-0 deficit.

And even though you can offer the power play an olive branch with a couple of good two-minute segments on Thursday, that is not remotely good enough at this stage of the game.

The Bruins were lucky they didn't have to kill off more penalties in this one than they did. It sure seemed like they were confident in taking some liberties, especially against Tage Thompson. The strategy made it feel as though they were banking on fatigue by the officials in making a bunch of calls, combined with no fear of the punchless Buffalo power play.

The Sabres didn't get flustered. They were moving their feet. They're a tough team to keep up with. They finally got some offense a tad earlier. The Bruins are chasing them now. Strange as it feels.

"We've talked about the emotion of winning a big game, and we've talked about you've got to get through the emotion of losing a tough game," Ruff said. "You lose at home, you had all this emotion after Game 1, and that's the battle of the playoffs. You've got to be ready to put away a big win ... We have to be ready to put this game away and get ready for a really desperate team on Sunday in their building."

 

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The Athletic: Sabres vs. Bruins Game 3: Key takeaways from Buffalo taking 2-1 series lead​

Sabres vs. Bruins Game 3: Key takeaways from Buffalo taking 2-1 series lead

The Sabres got goals from Bowen Byram, Alex Tuch and Noah Östlund to beat the Bruins 3-1 in Game 3.

www.nytimes.com

Alex Tuch scored the game-winning goal for Buffalo in the third period. Steve Babineau / NHLI via Getty Images

Before the Buffalo Sabres hit the road to play Game 3 of their first-round series against the Bruins in Boston, veteran goalie Alex Lyon spoke about what it takes to overcome the adversity of a playoff series, something a lot of his teammates hadn’t dealt with. His answer was simple.

“You have to kind of love it,” Lyon said.

The first two games of this series were, at times, a struggle for the Sabres. They needed a dramatic third-period comeback to pull off a 4-3 win in Game 1. Then the Sabres were thoroughly outplayed in Game 2 on their way to a 4-2 loss. They entered Game 3 with questions about who their goalie would be and how they would figure out how to solve Boston’s stingy defensive structure.

Lindy Ruff made three lineup changes, swapping Lyon in for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, having Noah Östlund replace the injured Josh Norris and putting Tyson Kozak on the fourth line in place of Josh Dunne. And despite some positive results from those changes, this game was still a grind. But after falling behind 1-0, the Sabres got goals from Bowen Byram, Alex Tuch and Östlund to beat the Bruins 3-1 and take a 2-1 series lead.

For the third straight game, the Sabres allowed the first goal. The Sabres also continued their power-play slump and have now gone 35 straight power plays without scoring, dating back to the regular season. And Buffalo took four minor penalties, including two in the third period, and gave the Bruins a penalty shot. But none of that mattered in this game, because two of their most experienced players came through when it mattered. Byram’s goal in the second period tied the game.

And then early in the third period, Tuch got the puck on his stick in between the faceoff circles and had all the time he needed to rip a shot right by the glove hand of Bruins star goalie Jeremy Swayman to put the Sabres up 2-1. Östlund added the empty-netter to give the Sabres the 3-1 lead.

Nothing about this series has been easy for the Sabres, but they now have a 2-1 series lead and two days between games to prepare for Game 4 on Sunday afternoon.

“That’s the battle of the playoffs: You’ve got to be ready to put away a big win,” said Ruff. “We have to be ready to put this game away and get ready for a really desperate team on Sunday in their building. Just the same way they have to put the game away and know that they’ve got to battle and bounce back. It’s something that our guys, some of them, haven’t been through, but they’ve got a little bit of a taste of it.”

Goalie change pays off for Buffalo​

Lyon made his first start of the playoffs, and the veteran looked locked in right away. Lyon stopped all nine shots he faced in the first period, and four of them were high-danger shots, according to Natural Stat Trick. In the opening minutes of the game, Tuch turned a puck over, and Lyon had to come up with a big save. Then later in the period, Lyon was the Sabres’ best penalty killer, making two clutch saves, including one on a Pavel Zacha redirect in front of the net.

Jeannot scored in the second period when he put a shot right by Lyon’s blocker while Buffalo defenseman Conor Timmins was blocking Lyon’s vision. But moments later, Lyon came back and made a tough save on David Pastrnak.

After Luukkonen looked shaky early in this series, Lyon helped settle things down at the most important position. With Swayman locked in at the other end, Lyon needed to be sharp, and he was. Goaltending is Boston’s biggest advantage in this series. Maybe Lyon can narrow the gap.

Viktor Arvidsson misses penalty shot​

Viktor Arvidsson had a great second-period chance to give the Bruins a 2-0 lead. The right wing was given a penalty shot after he was tripped by Rasmus Dahlin. Arvidsson tried to go high blocker on Lyon. But his shot went wide of the net.

“It was a big swing,” said coach Marco Sturm. “It cost us a few big minutes there, especially before the period ends. The bench was not the same. Let’s put it that way. But we felt good.”

Arvidsson did not have a penalty shot in the regular season. He was 2 for 3 in the shootout.

Noah Östlund makes an immediate impact​

Östlund made his playoff debut in Game 3, and his impact was obvious right away. The 22-year-old rookie is already one of Buffalo’s best playmakers, and he showed that on the Sabres’ first goal. He gained the zone with speed, carried the puck into the corner, and threaded a perfect pass to Byram, who beat Swayman on a one-timer. Östlund was all over the ice in the first period, too, making the subtle plays in small areas to make the Sabres’ zone entries smoother and establish more offensive zone time. And then in the third period, Östlund won a race to a loose puck to get the empty net goal to help the Sabres finish off the win.

There’s a reason Dahlin said of Östlund before the game, “He’s a special guy. He comes in as a rookie and looks like he’s been playing in this league forever. He’s so smart defensively and offensively. When you watch him play, it doesn’t look like he makes a mistake out there. He just does everything right, it looks like.”

Earlier in the season, the Sabres weren’t able to withstand the loss of Norris in the middle of their lineup. But Östlund came in after missing a month with an injury and looked like he was an upgrade over Norris on the line with Zach Benson and Josh Doan. He rose to the occasion in Buffalo’s 8-7 win over Tampa Bay late in the regular season and seems equipped to handle the pressure of playoff hockey.

“I always want to have the puck as much as possible,” Östlund said before the playoffs. “But in those games you have to be smart and read the game a little bit more, and that’s something I feel I’m good at.”

Bowen Byram continues to show his worth​

Of the Sabres who have been in the lineup in this series, Byram is the only one with a Stanley Cup ring. And it has shown. He scored his second goal of the series on Thursday on that setup from Östlund and later kept a play alive to get a goal on Tuch’s goal. While Dahlin and Owen Power have failed to make much of an offensive impact through three games, Byram is finding a way to get involved in the offensive zone and finish the chances that he’s getting. He’s been unafraid to pinch in and put pressure on the Bruins in the offensive zone, and he’s shown poise with the puck. He’s only 24, but Byram is looking like one of Buffalo’s most important players so far this postseason.

Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic team up​

Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic are better known for their gloves-off business. Their willingness to fight Erik Gudbranson and Mathieu Olivier was critical in helping the Bruins score a come-from-behind regular-season win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The fourth-liners applied their skill in the second period for the Bruins’ first goal.

After Jeannot took a clearing pass from Charlie McAvoy, Kastelic ran interference on Timmins. By engaging Timmins briefly, Kastelic gave Jeannot time to load up his snapshot. Timmins tried to shake off Kastelic’s check to get in front of Jeannot’s shot. But Timmins ended up screening Lyon instead. The goalie didn’t see Jeannot’s release through Timmins’ screen.

“It was a good, heavy shift,” said Jeannot. “Good hits. We were playing a simple game all night long. Nice to see one go in.