Bruins’ Season Ends as they Fall in Game 6 to Buffalo, ‘It’s Tough, Sucks’

BOSTON –– The Boston Bruins’ season came to an end on Friday night at TD Garden as they fell 4-1 to the Buffalo Sabres in Game 6 of the first round.

“It’s tough, sucks. I mean, feels like a missed opportunity, obviously,” Nikita Zadorov said. “With the group we had, the belief we have in this room, and the season we had. To finish like that, it sucks. It really does.”​

It caps off a year of highs and lows for a team that challenged expectations and came together under first-year head coach Marco Sturm. Friday’s showing, to state the obvious, is not how the Bruins wanted to go out. But it does not scrap the past eight months for the group.

“Why do we feel the pressure? Because we care. I think guys care. They wanted to prove everyone wrong…That’s sometimes how it goes,” Sturm said. “But again, it’s not lack of effort, it’s not lack of attitude. These guys care, I can tell you that. We’re here for a reason. Played a hell of a season because of the character we have in that room, and unfortunately, we came up short.”

Sturm had a clear message for the room following the final buzzer of the 2025-26 campaign.

“It sucks, right? Getting kicked out of the playoffs, it hurts. Absolutely, it hurts. But also, I reminded them what kind of season they played,” Sturm said. “I just wanted them to know how proud I am.”

The Sabres took a 2-0 advantage in the first period. Alex Tuch opened the scoring with a snapshot at 3:25 before Mattias Samuelsson’s blast from the point went in at 12:26. It was another shaky start on home ice for Boston.

“What I really noticed is if you look at around the playoffs now, how goals get scored, everything is in the paint. For some reason, we didn’t get there,” Sturm said. “If you look at Buffalo, that’s where they scored a lot of goals. I think that was a big difference.”

The B’s collected themselves between periods and got on the board in the middle frame.

​Hampus Lindholm got the puck in the neutral zone and pushed it up to Pavel Zacha, who took off on a 2-on-1 with David Pastrnak towards the Buffalo net. Zacha swung it over to Pastrnak on the left side, where he one-timed it past Alex Lyon to make it 2-1 at 1:54. It was Pastrnak’s third goal of the series, which led the team.

“I am super proud of the way the group came together from day one, the way we worked every single night, and the way we built to the team we ended up being,” Pastrnak said. “Unfortunately, just ran into Buffalo. There’s a reason they won the division. A lot of skill and speed over there.”

Despite a flurry of chances from the B’s to open the third, Buffalo closed out the game and series with two more tallies. Zach Benson ripped one from the slot for the 3-1 lead at 5:58, and Josh Norris’ empty-net goal at 16:40 sealed the 4-1 loss for Boston.

“Made a push, made a couple mistakes, and end up in our net. They’re too skilled to do that,” Pastrnak said. “Sad, disappointing. Proud of the group. We fought the whole year, made it to the playoffs. It sucks.”

Jeremy Swayman finished the night with 22 saves. The goaltender posted a 2.91 goals against average and a .906 save percentage through six games this series.

​“I think we’ll take a little bit to soak in what we accomplished this year. I think one of my favorite things about this group is that when we made playoffs, it was a success, but it wasn’t enough. That was a really telltale sign of what kind of group we have here,” Swayman said. “I think we have a lot to be proud of and definitely a lot to work on, too.”​

Now starts the offseason for the Bruins to reflect, recharge and come back stronger.

“I think it’s a motivation, for sure, I think to get better over the summer as the team, as individuals,” Zadorov said. “There’s a lot of ways to improve this team, and I think we definitely want to push harder next year to go even deeper.”