Sabres score 4 in 1st, win Game 4 of Eastern 1st Round to push Bruins to brink

BOSTON -- The Buffalo Sabres scored four goals in the first period, pushing the Boston Bruins to the brink with a 6-1 victory in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference First Round at TD Garden on Sunday.

“That first period is the best period we’ve played all year,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “Puck pressure, the scoring opportunities, as well as we moved the puck and got the puck up ice, and didn’t spend much time in our end. (Game 3’s first period) wasn’t our best period, but these last five have been really solid.”

The Sabres lead the best-of-7 series 3-1. Game 5 will be at KeyBank Center in Buffalo on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, NESN, MSG-B, SNP, SNO, SNE, TVAS).

Josh Doan, Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs and Bowen Byram each had a goal and an assist, and Alex Lyon made 23 saves for the Sabres, the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Division.

“What has kind of held us back a little bit has been our starts,” Krebs said. “We wanted to make sure we took it to them right off the hop, and not on our heels, getting on our toes right away.”

Sean Kuraly scored, and Jeremy Swayman allowed six goals on 29 shots before he was replaced in the third period by Joonas Korpisalo, who stopped all six shots he faced in relief for the Bruins, the first wild card from the East. Viktor Arvidsson exited the game late in the first period with an upper-body injury and did not return.

“We should be embarrassed because it was embarrassing,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “Guys know me and we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to analyze this, but at the end of the day, we have to move on, too. I am embarrassed and we all should be. You have to win four games to move on. They’ve got three, so that means we still have a chance. I can cry about it, but I have to push my guys for the next game and make sure our intensity is going to be there.”

Buffalo scored three goals in a 4:58 span in the first period for the early advantage.

“We had good legs. We had good energy and when you have good energy, you get to places,” Ruff said. “Our feet were moving. We weren’t standing around. Our anticipation where pucks were going was really good. We were back on top of them, so most of the passes they had to make had to go through us and we created the turnovers that led to scoring opportunities.”

Krebs gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 4:17. Boston failed to clear the puck on the breakout, allowing Buffalo to quickly create a 3-on-1. Tuch controlled the puck in the right circle and fed Krebs, who beat a sprawling Swayman high blocker with a quick wrist shot from the slot.

“Saw (Tage Thompson) break the play up, and Tuch right in the middle made a great pass and I just put it in the net. It was a good play,” Krebs said.

Doan extended it to 2-0 at 7:10, positioning himself in front of Swayman and redirecting a centering pass from Ryan McLeod just after time expired on a too-many-men penalty against the Bruins.

Zach Benson pushed it to 3-0 at 9:15, scoring five-hole after Doan helped force a turnover on a Boston breakout attempt.

“That’s a big part of (Doan’s) game,” Benson said. “Both of us -- it’s a big part of both of our games. When one guy’s being a dog on a bone, the other guy knows how to read it. Obviously, he’s so good at that, and when I saw he had pressure on the guy, I knew he was going to take it away. So, just tried to read it, and obviously it worked out.”

Sturm then called a timeout to no avail.

“You could tell we were just hurting, so I’ve got to stop this,” Sturm said. “Message-wise, there were a few things I had to address, and the other thing is you’ve got to wake them up. For some reason now, two games in a row we were totally flat in a playoff game and that just can’t happen -- that just can’t happen.”

Byram made it 4-0 at 14:24 with his third goal in as many games when he beat Swayman stick side with a shot from the left circle.

“I think we’re a super deep team and that’s our strength, but we’ve got to keep playing to it,” Byram said. “I don’t think there’s necessarily one line or one pair of ‘D’ that’s been getting it done every night; it seems to be a group effort. I think that’s why we’ve been having success. Just line after line we keep coming. It’s been a ton of fun.”

The Bruins managed only five shots on goal in the opening period.

“They do a good job getting on us quick,” Boston defenseman Hampus Lindholm said of Buffalo’s forecheck. “They had a lot of speed tonight. They came at us quick. It’s something we have to look at to try to be a little stronger on pucks and kill their speed a little bit. This time of year, it shouldn’t be easy out there, so we have to make it way harder.”

Beck Malenstyn extended it to 5-0 at 5:08 of the third period before Tuch made it 6-0 at 6:32.

Kuraly scored a short-handed goal for the 6-1 final.

“Waste of opportunity,” said Bruins forward David Pastrnak, who only has one goal in this series. “It’s unacceptable. We expect better from ourselves. You can’t show up like this. The first period is so important and you can’t show up like that as a team. That first period was unacceptable.” 

For the second consecutive start, Lyon was solid despite the lopsided game.

“He looked really comfortable and hate the goal that we gave them as a team after how well he’s played,” Ruff said. “He’s really confident between the pipes right now.”

The Sabres have an opportunity to advance past the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2006-07, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators 4-1 in the Eastern Conference Final.

“The challenge is the team that’s going to come in there, they hit their highest desperation level,” Ruff said. “Your desperation has to exceed theirs, knowing that they have nothing to lose anymore, and sometimes when there’s nothing to lose, you can create enough chaos and enough passion that it makes it extremely hard for the team that’s trying to close it out to win a game.”

NOTES: Buffalo forwards Jason Zucker and Tyson Kozak left the game and did not return. Ruff said both could’ve come back, but held both out given the status of the game. … Lyon became the fifth Sabres goaltender to earn wins in each of his first two career playoff starts with the franchise, joining Ryan Miller (2006), Grant Fuhr (1993), Don Edwards (1977) and Gerry Desjardins (1975). … The Sabres earned a playoff win by a margin of five or more goals for the 10th time in franchise history and first since a 7-1 win against the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6 of the 2006 Conference Quarterfinals.