BUFFALO, NY – David Pastrnak would score his 15th goal of the season, but a second period collapse haunted the Bruins in a 4-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres at the KeyBank Center on Saturday night.
The Bruins would score first in this contest, with just over eight minutes to go in the first period. Morgan Geekie won the puck off the boards and found David Pastrnak, who saw his spot and fired. His top-corner snipe would be the only goal from the Boston end tonight.
The Bruins held a 1-0 lead after the first period, but Buffalo was creating more offense in the first 20. The Sabres outshot Boston 13-9 and generated four high-danger chances to the Bruins’ two.
As the second period started, Buffalo would tie the game, take the lead, then expand on their lead. The three goals came from Ryan McLeod, Peyton Krebs, and Mattias Samuelsson. The three Sabres goals came within 6:15.
Hampus Lindholm sprung Morgan Geekie on a long pass, but he missed and took contact from Mattias Samuelsson. The Sabres caught the Bruins in transition and McLeod fired a shot by Joonas Korpisalo on his blocker side to tie the game.
Then, Alex Steeves whiffed on a clearance attempt, and the Bruins were stuck on the ice. Buffalo maintained possession and moved around the five white sweaters and got the puck to Tage Thompson. Thompson fired a shot, and Peyton Krebs deflected it right by Korpisalo to give the Sabres the lead.
Mattias Samuelsson would go on to expand the Sabres’ lead. With traffic in front of Korpisalo, Samuelsson lined up a wrist shot from the point, and it found the back of the net. That was Samuelsson’s third point of the period, and he was named the game’s first star.
The Sabres scored three goals; the Bruins only registered two shots in the second period.
The Bruins fought in the third period; they put up 11 shots – doubling their output from the first 40 minutes – and killed off three penalties. However, they could not solve Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as he stopped all 11; he made 21 saves on the night.
For good measure, Josh Norris picked up the empty net goal with 13.8 seconds on the clock.
The Bruins’ penalty kill did go three-for-three, which is their first time killing all penalties in a game since December 6.
The Bruins and Sabres entered this game playing completely different games as of late. Buffalo had won their last seven, and Boston had lost their previous four. Boston has now lost their last five games, and has four games left on their current road trip. The Bruins will fly to Calgary for their game on Monday at 9:00 PM ET.