Tuch, Mattias Samuelsson, Zach Benson and Josh Norris scored for the Sabres, who are the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Division. Dahlin and Tage Thompson each had two assists, and Alex Lyon made 25 saves.
Lyon went 3-1-0 in the series with a 1.14 goals-against average and .955 save percentage in five games. He started the final four games after relieving Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen early in the third period of Game 2.
“You can’t get much better than that,” Tuch said of Lyon’s performance in this series. “He was lights out. The only way they beat him tonight was just a great 2-on-1 backdoor by (David) Pastrnak, who is a really good player. (Lyon) was lights out. He was just in the zone and attacked every opportunity they threw at him. He was Steady Eddie. He was awesome. It gives the bench a lot of confidence when you have a guy like that, playing the way he was.”
The Sabres will face either the Montreal Canadiens or the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round. Tampa Bay extended that series with a 1-0 overtime victory in Montreal on Friday; the teams will play the deciding Game 7 in Tampa on Sunday.
“It was unreal,” said Dahlin, the Sabres captain, who is in his eighth season with Buffalo. “I like how we attacked this series as a team. A lot of unexperienced guys, and just playing the way we did all series is pretty cool. We have good things ahead. We can learn a lot from this, but I love what we did in this series. It was special.”
Buffalo, making its first postseason appearance since 2011, hadn’t won a playoff series since it eliminated the New York Rangers in Game 6 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Semifinals when current Sabres coach Lindy Ruff was in his first stint with the team.
“It’s a group that hasn’t been here,” Ruff said. “I told them, ‘We’re going to win the game.’ I said, ‘We’re going to win the series. We’ve got to do some things better, but we’re going to win the game.’
“The only way you get experience is by winning. I’ve had disappointing games against Boston going way back, so to come in here and win this series in this building, it’s not an easy town to come in and play and win hockey games. We’ve got to give our guys a lot of credit.”
David Pastrnak scored, and Jeremy Swayman made 22 saves for the Bruins, who were the first wild card from the East.
“We never really got into the flow and Buffalo played solid,” Boston coach Marco Sturm said. “They played like we played (Game 5) in Buffalo. It’s sometimes how it goes, but it’s not for lack of effort. It’s not for lack of attitude. These guys care, I can tell you that. We’re here for a reason. We played a hell of a season because of the character we have in that room, and unfortunately, we came up short.”
After finishing tied with the Carolina Hurricanes for the most home wins in the regular season (29), the Bruins lost all three games at TD Garden in this series.
“It’s not acceptable,” Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. “I don’t know exactly what it is. We can talk a big game in here about how excited we are, but for whatever reason we were awesome at home this year and we didn’t do it when it mattered the most. I don’t know if it’s a maturity thing. We just weren’t ready to go with details. I’m not exactly sure, but they got the jump on us all three times (at TD Garden).
Tuch gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 3:25 of the first period. He scored on a tap-in near the right post off of Dahlin’s pass from the bottom of the left face-off circle.
“I joined the rush, and (Thompson) made a good play,” Dahlin said. “It was in my feet, but I knew I had someone back door, so I looked up and it was (Tuch) in the right spot at the right time, so it was just easy to give it to him.”
