Bruins Fall 3-1 in Game 3 to Sabres, ‘We’re Going to Bounce Back’

BOSTON –– The Boston Bruins fell 3-1 to the Buffalo Sabres in Game 3 of the first round on Thursday at TD Garden.​

“First of all, they were just a little bit better than us, I’ve got to say. I thought we were a little tight right from the start,” head coach Marco Sturm said. “But we were still in the game, we were fine. Just those little mistakes cost us the second goal there.”

It was a scoreless opening frame, but Tanner Jeannot broke the ice in the second period following a wrecking-ball shift from his fourth line with Sean Kuraly and Mark Kastelic. The trio put forth a bruising forecheck, hitting any Sabre in its way before Charlie McAvoy retrieved the puck and pushed it back up to Jeannot, who snapped it past Alex Lyon from the left circle at 3:26. It marked the first playoff goal of Jeannot’s seven-year NHL career. McAvoy collected his second assist of the series on the play.

“It was a good, heavy shift. Good hits. We were playing a simple game all night long. Nice to see one go in, but it’s about getting the win. Feels good to see one go in, but would’ve rathered the win,” Jeannot said. “I thought we played pretty well for the most part. We just got caught a little bit deep a couple times. They’re a really good rush team, and they made us pay. We will look at the tape and move on.”

Buffalo found the 1-1 equalizer off a wrister from Bowen Byram at 10:58. Alex Tuch put the Sabres ahead 2-1 at 4:03 of the third period.

“We did a better job Game 1, Game 2 in their building, creating and playing more behind them. For some reason, we didn’t do it as much today,” Sturm said. “We just didn’t have enough today. And that’s just not going to do it in the playoffs.”

The Bruins had a few chances to tie the game in the latter half of the third but were unable to convert on the man advantage. Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak combined for 10 of Boston’s 25 total shots on goal.

“Just got to bear down. We had big opportunities on power plays; we got two power plays in the last six, seven minutes. We have to bury one of those. It’s on us guys on the power play to be better. Their goalie played well, but we have to make it a little harder on him as well,” Pastrnak said. “It was a good opportunity for us, but it’s playoffs. Every game has been tight-checking, and today they came on top of it.”

Noah Ostlund brought the contest to its final 3-1 standing with an empty-net tally at 18:36. Jeremy Swayman finished the night with 25 saves.

“It is important to take the positives and move forward. So good to be on home ice. The crowd was amazing,” Swayman said. “Just understanding stuff is going to go good, and stuff’s going to go wrong. All we have to do is worry about the next shift, and I think we can be extremely successful when we do that.”

The Bruins return to action on Sunday for Game 4 at TD Garden.

​“We’ve just got to put this one behind. We’re going to address it in the next few days again, what we can do better, and then we’re going to bounce back. We’ve done it all year long,” Sturm said. “I think that’s going to be the biggest message. Nothing really changes. We did it in Buffalo, we did it all season long. We always bounced back. We’re still in a pretty good spot.”