Need to Know: Bruins at Sabres | First Round

BUFFALO –– The Boston Bruins had five players leading the post-skate stretch on Sunday at KeyBank Center.

James Hagens, Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov, Mark Kastelic and Jonathan Aspirot were all pushed to the center for a job that usually takes one person. But this is not just any other game. That group will be making its NHL playoffs debut when the puck drops at 7:30 p.m. for Game 1 of the first round against the Buffalo Sabres.

​“It was obviously a cool moment. Just for all of us,” Hagens said. “I have only been here for two games, third now. Everything is coming at you really quick, but these guys have worked all year, all their careers, for this. It is really exciting for me to be able to be along for the journey.”

Hagens will skate on the third line with Minten and Khusnutdinov – a trio that has an average age of 21. They finished out the regular season together and are looking to bring a spark to the series.

“It has been awesome, especially getting to know them off the ice. They’re great guys, funny guys. When you’re able to connect with people like that off the ice, it just kind of leads onto the ice as well,” Hagens said. “Learn every shift – it is playoff hockey. It is obviously going to be a little bit different, but I am excited for it.”

It has been the story of the season for this team. Young and eager players mixed with battle-tested veterans and impactful depth pieces earned the B’s a 100-point showing through 82 games, and got them playing spring hockey. Goaltending, too, of course, has made all the difference. Head coach Marco Sturm wants his group to stick to its identity.

“When we’re hard on pucks, strong on pucks, when we’re physical – we have a chance. If we decide to play their way, might as well stay at home, because they’re that good. If you’re a Boston Bruin, we just have to play that way,” Sturm said. “It is a little bit up to us how we want to play.”

The fourth line of Tanner Jeannot, Sean Kuraly and Kastelic will be key to implementing this style. The forecheck, hits, fights and – as of late – secondary production have been the hallmarks of that combination.

“It doesn’t change for us. That’s what we try to do every night. Obviously, it ramps up in playoffs. We want to be really hard on them, putting pucks deep. Just play our game, try to grind them down in their end and not fuel their quick transition,” Jeannot said.

Jeremy Swayman will start in net for Boston. The goaltender closed out the regular season with a 21-save shutout on Tuesday. Swayman has a 2.71 goals against average and a .908 save percentage through 55 games.

“I can’t talk highly about him enough. He’s been rock solid all year long,” Sturm said of Swayman. “He’s been in a great spot. He’s happy at the rink, he’s happy at home. He won gold. I think if you put everything together, that’s exactly what he brings to his game and our group every night. He’s a big factor of why we are actually sitting here right now. I’m glad, and hopefully he can continue that.”

This will be Boston’s 78th all-time postseason appearance, the second-most by any franchise in NHL history behind only Montreal (87).

​Charlie McAvoy leads the Bruins with 91 playoff games played; David Pastrnak is right behind him with 90. Viktor Arvidsson, who went to the Stanley Cup Final with the Edmonton Oilers last season, has skated in 87 total games in the postseason.

Pastrnak has scored a team-high 39 goals in the playoffs. Arvidsson is ranked second with 15 goals, and Elias Lindholm is after that with 13. Pastrnak also has the most playoff assists (48); McAvoy has the second-most with 42, and Arvidsson has the third-most with 29.

“It’s the best time of the year. It is what every team works to get towards,” Jeannot said. “Really excited. Really confident in our group and our message. We just want to go out there and play Bruins hockey and keep building from there. And just enjoy every second.”

Opposing View

The Sabres finished the regular season in first place in the Atlantic Division with 109 points and a 50-23-9 record. Sunday marks Buffalo’s first time in the playoffs since the 2010-11 season; it ends the longest drought in NHL history.

“I’m hoping that we are amped up,” Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said. “It will be a totally different feeling, for sure. I’m looking forward to how our guys are going to react to it. We’ve talked about the energy we need to bring, how we need to play. I anticipate them being ready to go.”

Tage Thompson leads the Sabres with 81 points (40 goals, 41 assists) through 81 games. The 28-year-old forward centered the first line between Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch during Buffalo’s Saturday team practice; Sunday was an optional skate for the Sabres. Thompson finished the year with three points (two goals, one assist) in his last three games.

“It always is a focus. It will be a focus for us to make sure that we limit Pastrnak and Geekie’s production, and I think their focus will be making sure that they limit Thompson and Tuch, who are our top offensive guys,” Ruff said.  

Thompson is also on the first power-play unit; he has six goals on the man advantage. The Sabres’ power play ranks 21st in the league at 19.5% – it took a dip at the end of the regular season. Buffalo went 0-for-22 on the man advantage ahead of the playoffs.

The Sabres’ penalty kill, though, has been at the top of the NHL. It ranked fourth overall, firing at 81.9%. Ryan McLeod, Mattias Samuelsson, Luke Schenn and Tuch have made up the first unit on the PK.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is expected to start in net for Buffalo. The 6-foot-5 goaltender, who was selected in the second round of the 2017 NHL Draft by the Sabres, will be making his playoff debut. Luukkonen has a 2.52 GAA and a .910 SV% through 35 games.

On the back end, the Sabres are led by their captain, Rasmus Dahlin, who is on the first pair with Samuelsson. Dahlin is having a career-high year with 74 points (19 goals, 55 assists) through 77 games. He logs a team-high average of 24:11 of ice time per night.

Ruff will lean on contributions from his bottom six, too, especially the third line of Zach Benson, Josh Norris and Josh Doan. Doan is fifth on the team in points with 52 (25 goals, 27 assists) through 82 games. The 24-year-old forward was traded from Utah to Buffalo in June and signed a seven-year contract extension with the Sabres in January.

Norris enters the playoffs on a six-game point streak (three goals, four assists through that stretch); Benson enters the playoffs on a five-game point streak (three goals, four assists through that stretch).

Benson (20), Doan (24) and Norris (26) have been highlights of the Sabres’ youth that helped Buffalo make it to the first round.

“I think you build an appreciation for each player. You know that younger players need a little bit more time to grow. It takes a coach a little while to realize what this player can bring,” Ruff said. “We’ve had some great contributions from our younger guys.”

​This Season

The Bruins and Sabres met four times during the regular season; Boston posted a 3-1-0 record against its first-round opponent. Pastrnak led the B’s with six points (three goals, three assists) in the four games against Buffalo; Pavel Zacha had four points (two goals, two assists).

Oct. 11 at Boston –– Bruins 3, Sabres 1

Kastelic posted a goal and an assist, and Zacha and Kuraly also scored in the victory. Swayman was ranked the game’s first star with 21 saves. Boston extended its season-opening win streak to three games that night after beating the Washington Capitals and Chicago Blackhawks, too, to start the year.

Oct. 30 at Boston –– Bruins 4, Sabres 3 (OT)

Khusnutdinov scored 2:07 into overtime to secure the two points for the B’s in their second win over the Sabres. Morgan Geekie had a power-play goal in the first period, and Pastrnak added on for the 2-0 lead. Kastelic logged his third of the season in the second period before the matchup eventually was decided in the extra frame. Joonas Korpisalo made 37 saves, his most of the season.​

Dec. 27 at Buffalo –– Bruins 1, Sabres 4

The Bruins touched down in Buffalo hours before puck drop following the NHL’s Christmas break and fell 4-1. Pastrnak scored Boston’s only goal, and Geekie picked up the assist. It kicked off a five-game road trip for the B’s, during which they beat the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks.

March 25 at Buffalo –– Bruins 4, Sabres 3 (OT)

Boston was skating in the second game of a back-to-back after playing the Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden the night before. Pastrnak and Arvidsson scored for the Bruins in the first half of the game, but the team trailed 3-2 with 14 minutes on the clock in the third. Former Sabre Casey Mittelstadt found the 3-3 equalizer at 14:00 before Zacha earned the extra point in overtime on the road. Korpisalo made 22 saves. It opened a four-game win streak for the Bruins.

Postseason History

This is the ninth time the Bruins and Sabres have met in the playoffs; Boston has won six of the previous eight series.

The most recent postseason matchup between the two teams was in 2009-10. The Bruins won the conference quarterfinals in six games. Sturm was a B’s player at the time, in his fifth year with the organization. Now, he’ll be behind the bench, trying to coach his squad to another series victory.

“I said it today, I actually want to play right now,” Sturm said with a smile. “Those were the good days, those were the fun days. That’s why you play the game, I feel like – those kinds of moments. It doesn’t matter who you’re going to play against. It’s the postseason, it’s the playoffs. You’ve got to go out, and you’ve got to enjoy, you’ve got to battle hard. Those are the memories I personally have from my playing days, and those are the best ones.”

Buffalo and Boston first faced off in the 1981-82 playoffs, when the Bruins won the Adams Division Semifinals in four games. The following year, Boston beat the Sabres in seven games in the Adams Division Finals. The next meeting was in 1987-88; the Bruins won the division semifinals in six games, and did the same the following season (1988-89), but this time in five games.

Ruff played for the Sabres for 10 seasons (1979-89) and remembers those bruising series against the Bruins.

“Back then, I had a hard time sleeping during the day when you knew that night was going to be one of those nights you feared for your life sometimes. The game is different. The intimidation was a huge part of the game back then,” Ruff said. “When you lived through the game, it was fun, yeah.”

The B’s topped Buffalo once again in the 1991-92 division semifinals in seven games. The Sabres then swept the Bruins in the 1992-93 division semifinals. Buffalo’s second series win against Boston came in 1998-99, when it won the Eastern Conference Semifinals in six games before falling to the Dallas Stars in the Stanley Cup Final.

Series Schedule

Game 1: Sunday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m. (KeyBank Center | TV: NESN, ESPN, SN360, TVAS | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub) 

Game 2: Tuesday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m. (KeyBank Center | TV: NESN, ESPN, SN360, TVAS | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub)

Game 3: Thursday, April 23 at 7 p.m. (TD Garden | TV: NESN, TNT, truTV, HBO MAX, SN360, TVAS | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub) 

Game 4: Sunday, April 26 at 2 p.m. (TD Garden | TV: NESN, TNT, truTV, HBO MAX, SN, TVAS | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub) 

Game 5: Tuesday, April 28 at TBD (KeyBank Center | TV: TBD | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub 

Game 6: Friday May 1 at TBD (TD Garden | TV: TBD | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub) 

Game 7: Sunday, May 3 at TBD (KeyBank Center | TV: TBD | RADIO: 98.5 The Sports Hub)