Sabres' epic comeback in Game 1 of East 1st Round 'a long time coming'

BUFFALO -- The roars started the second the Buffalo Sabres emerged from the tunnel, the fans standing, the pom-poms waving, the music thumping, the feeling electric. These were the lucky ones, inside the building. There were more, so many more, outside of KeyBank Center on the plaza, in a party of their own making. They held silver-wrapped Stanley Cups, and battled a dummy clad in a Boston Bruins jersey, and cheered and basked in a feeling they hadn’t had in 15 seasons.

Some of them had never had it.

They knew this would be special, a game they had hoped and prayed for, a game they had waited for, patiently and not-so-patiently. They didn’t know how special it would be.

There were 12 minutes gone in the third period, the Sabres still not able to break through, still not able to solve Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman, when Buffalo engineered what it had been looking for, the tiniest opening. It came in the form of Tage Thompson, a puck collected around the back of the net and slipped wraparound style between Swayman and the left post.

It would be enough. It would be enough to send the building into hysterics, to give them a chance. It would be enough for the Sabres to score and score again, to turn what had been a two-goal deficit into a 4-3 win, into a 1-0 lead in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round series.

It would be enough to serve as a balm for the Sabres faithful, as a promise of what more can be.

“These are the kind of games you live for,” Thompson said. “You want to be in these games. It’s been a long time coming.”

He had been waiting his entire career for a game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, for a chance at what his father had exactly four times in his career, with the Los Angeles Kings in 1992. He had been waiting since he arrived in Buffalo before the 2018-19 season, over seasons in which he had grown into a 40-goal scorer, into a premier player, into a force.

This, though, he couldn’t have imagined.

He scored at 12:02 of the third period, on that wraparound.

He scored again at 15:44 of the third, Alex Tuch winning a puck battle along the boards to push the puck out to Thompson at the goal line.

And then, 52 seconds later, as the announcement of his second, game-tying goal had barely left the lips of the public address announcer, Mattias Samuelsson slipped a wrister short side on Swayman off a pass from Jack Quinn, setting off exactly the “bedlam” that former Sabres forward and current Bruins forward Casey Mittelstadt had said that morning that he was expecting.

“It was probably the loudest I’ve ever heard in my life,” Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said. “It’s just one of those things which you can’t really -- you know that it’s gonna be loud, you know it’s gonna be electric, but you never can imagine how loud it’s gonna get here.

“The fans are the reason we get to do what we do. They’re the ones who have waited the longest, so I’m really happy we grinded out a win tonight.”

They all mentioned those fans, the ones filling the stands for warmups, in jerseys old and new, Peca and Hasek, Vanek and Miller and Perreault, Thompson and Dahlin, Power and Tuch and Luukkonen.

Those were the fans responsible for the banner stretched along the wall in the rafters between sections 302 and 304 reading, “5,472 Days in the Making” and “Better Days Are Here!” The fans responsible for the sign that said, “This was me the last time the Sabres won the division” with a picture of a small child and another one that said, “Do it for RJ,” referencing longtime play-by-play announcer Rick Jeanneret, who died on Aug. 17, 2023.

Those were the fans they thought about after the game.

“You could feel the building shaking, even upstairs I guess they said the same thing,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “The atmosphere was unbelievable. It was great to give our fans that third period.”

The Sabres, as they so often have over the years, had tested their faith, going down 2-0 on goals by Morgan Geekie at 10:52 of the first period and Elias Lindholm at 1:08 of the third. The crowd had booed the power play, now stuck at zero goals for that goes back to April 2 and covers 26 chances.

But that would be a problem for another day.

Because they came back. Because they won. Because of Thompson and Samuelsson, Luukkonen and Tuch. Because of a team that was calm in the second intermission, even down two goals, even with disappointment staring them in the face.

For now, they could bask in the win, in the joy, in the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, this team is different. That this team is special.

They had worked so hard for this, so long.

“We’ve been in games that have prepared us for this,” Thompson said. “I think eight years of adversity is enough experience to get you ready for stuff like this. I think any time you go for eight years without making playoffs and then it’s finally here, the last thing you want is regret.

“There’s just a heightened feeling of hunger. Just don’t want to let this opportunity slip. Thought tonight was really important to make a statement and set our standard. I think we still have another level to get to.”