- Sabres beat Bruins 4-1 in Game 6 at TD Garden to win the series 4-2
- Buffalo’s first playoff series win in 19 years, dating back to 2007
- Read below for the full breakdown and what’s next for the Sabres in Round 2
Nineteen years. That’s how long Buffalo waited.
The Sabres closed out the Boston Bruins 4-1 in Game 6 at TD Garden on Thursday night, taking the Eastern Conference First Round series 4-2 and winning their first playoff series since the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals against the Rangers.
Alex Tuch and Mattias Samuelsson scored in the first period to put Boston in a hole it never climbed out of. Zach Benson and Josh Norris added insurance in the third. David Pastrnak got the Bruins’ only goal.
Alex Lyon was solid again in net, stopping 28 of 29 shots. The same guy who chirped Arvidsson after stuffing his penalty shot in Game 3 finished the series with a .931 save percentage.
Buffalo swept all three games in Boston. The Bruins were outscored 13-3 at TD Garden across the series. That’s the kind of road dominance nobody saw coming from a franchise that just ended a 14-year playoff drought last month.
Lindy Ruff’s team sat 11-13-4 on December 5. They went 39-10-5 the rest of the way, won the Atlantic Division, and now have a series win to go with it. The man is a Jack Adams finalist for a reason.
Charlie McAvoy’s night ended early. He took a baseball-swing slash at Benson with 1:31 left and was ejected with a five-minute major and a game misconduct. An ugly finish to a frustrating series for Boston.
The Sabres now wait for the winner of the Canadiens-Lightning series, which heads to Game 7, to find out who they’ll face in the second round.
