The Buffalo Sabres were all set to win a playoff series for the first time in 19 years, leading 3-1 over the Boston Bruins after a 6-1 thrashing in Game 4, but after taking the lead on a Rasmus Dahlin power play goal, the Sabres were unable to add on and allowed Boston to settle into a more defensive duel that suits their style of play. Elias Lindholm tied the game in the second period, and after a scoreless third with a number of scoring chances thwarted by Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman, David Pastrnak scored past Alex Lyon midway through the first overtime period to force Game 6 in Boston on Wednesday.
The win is the fourth of the five games in the series that the visiting team came out on top, and puts the Bruins in position to force a seventh game with a victory on home ice on Friday. The injury bug hit the Sabres up the middle for the second time in the series, as center Noah Ostlund left the game in the first period with a lower body injury. The rookie scored a goal and assist in his playoff debut in Game 3, but according to head coach Lindy Ruff, the injury is expected to keep Ostlund out for the foreseeable future.
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“He’s gonna miss a period of time,” Ruff said to the media on Wednesday. “(The) news wasn’t good, don’t exactly know how much right now, but he’s gonna miss some time.”
It is expected that Josh Norris, who sat out the last three games with an undisclosed injury but skated on Tuesday, will be ready to go for Game 6.
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Other questions asked of Ruff:
How do you prepare the club for an elimination game?
The same way we’re trying to prepare for for last night’s game. We knew there’s going to be a desperation level inside the game, and I thought the start to the game,. (with) the power play goal, we got off to a good start. I just sensed the little bit of nerves with our guys. Our puck play wasn’t as good as it was in Boston, so just get them to relax, play our game and be ready to go.
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What was it about the atmosphere that made the club a bit nervous?
I think you kind of sense we’ve got this lead, and we, at times, were just a little bit safe with our play, where we needed just to stay on our toes and stay aggressive and (have) more puck pressure that we kind of deferred to playing a safer game in my eyes.
You haven’t had many losing skids since early December, you’ve always bounced back. What do you credit that towards?
Really just focusing on our game. We’ll go through parts of the game, and there’s two or three areas we can improve for next game that we weren’t good enough at. And we’ll show two or three areas that we thought we can take advantage of the other team. I just feel now, the pressure kind of reverts back to them, and their building and they haven’t played well in their building, and we get to go there and play in a building where we’ve won two games.
The Sabres were held off the ice on Wednesday, but will practice on Thursday in Buffalo before departing for Boston.
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