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Boston Bruins left wing Viktor Arvidsson (71) celebrates his goal during the second period in Game 2 of a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey T. Barnes\/AP<\/p>\n
Boston Bruins center Morgan Geekie (39) celebrates his goal with right wing David Pastrnak (88) during the second period in Game 2 of a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey T. Barnes\/AP<\/p>\n
Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (1) watches the puck during the second period in Game 2 of a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series against the Boston Bruins Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey T. Barnes\/AP<\/p>\n
Boston Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman (1) makes a save in traffic during the first period in Game 2 of a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey T. Barnes\/AP<\/p>\n
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen hypes the crowd prior to the first period in Game 2 of a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series between the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey T. Barnes\/AP<\/p>\n
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 Morgan Geekie bounced in a shot from beyond center as part of Boston\u2019s three-goal second-period surge and the Bruins beat the Buffalo Sabres 4-2 to even their first-round playoff series at 1 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
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Viktor Arvidsson scored twice and Pavel Zacha also scored. David Pastrnak had two assists to give him five points in the series and tie Bobby Orr for eighth on the Bruins career playoff list with 92 points.<\/p>\n
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Jeremy Swayman stopped 32 shots, and this time Boston managed to not blow a multigoal third-period lead.<\/p>\n
Bowen Byram and Peyton Krebs scored 1:14 apart to cut Boston’s lead to 4-2 with 4:52 remaining in regulation before being stymied by Swayman, who stopped the final eight shots he faced.<\/p>\n
The Sabres opened the series with a 4-3 win in which they overcame a 2-0 third-period deficit by scoring four times in the final 7:58 of regulation on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cA series doesn\u2019t start until you win one on the road and that\u2019s important for us moving forward,\u201d Swayman said. \u201cThe biggest thing for our group is we left the past in the past and understood there was an opportunity tonight and seized it.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The series shifts to Boston for Game 3 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n Rather than carry over the momentum from Sunday, the Sabres gradually sagged due to spotty goaltending and an anemic power play.<\/p>\n Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen finished with 15 saves and was pulled after allowing Arvidsson\u2019s second goal 16 seconds into the third period to put Boston up 4-0. Alex Lyon mopped up and finished stopping all seven shots he faced.<\/p>\n Luukkonen looked shaky on three of the four goals allowed.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Coach Lindy Ruff refused to blame Luukkonen specifically. He called Geekie’s goal \u201clucky,\u201d and added: \u201cThis team has been so good about we win together, we lose together. I\u2019m not going to sit here and criticize that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet, Ruff didn’t rule out the possibility of going with Lyon in Game 3.<\/p>\n Arvidsson opened the scoring 4:54 into the second period by beating Buffalo defender Mattias Samuelsson to a loose puck. He then drove in and beat Luukkonen through the legs after the goalie was late in getting his stick down.<\/p>\n Then came Geekie\u2019s goal some 12 minutes later. From just outside the center line, the forward flipped a high backhander at the Buffalo net. Luukkonen came out of his crease in an attempt to glove it, only to have the puck bounce past him.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Geekie smiled when asked if he ever scored a goal like that and said: \u201cNo. And I don’t think ever will again. Honestly, was just trying to dump it in and got a lucky bounce.\u201d<\/p>\n Luukkonen took the blame on misplaying Geekie’s shot.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bad bounce. There\u2019s no way around it: It can\u2019t go in. Just kind of made a bad read on it,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like the biggest thing for me, personally is if there\u2019s a bad bounce, bad goal, you have to stop the bleeding. But wasn\u2019t able to do that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n After Zacha redirected Pastrnak\u2019s centering pass for a power-play goal with 1:50 left in the second period, Arvidsson scored by driving up the right wing and beating Luukkonen through the legs from 25 feet.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Buffalo\u2019s power play continued to struggle in going 0-of-5 on Tuesday and 0-of-9 in two games. The drought extends into the season, after Buffalo closed 0-for-22 over its final seven games.<\/p>\n Ruff acknowledged the power play’s struggles, but otherwise took the loss in stride. He noted that the Sabres were short on playoff experience after winning their first Atlantic Division title and snapping an NHL-record 14-year playoff drought.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s playoff hockey. Our guys have experienced very little of it. Now in a matter of few days, they\u2019ve been able to experience two games,\u201d Ruff said. “There\u2019s areas we\u2019re going to have to get better at, but don\u2019t want to see one person doubting that we\u2019re not going to go into Boston and win a hockey game.\u201d<\/p>\n With the city still buzzing from Buffalo\u2019s stunning win in Game 1, Bills quarterback Josh Allen kicked things off by beating the drum to lead the \u201cLet\u2019s go, Buffalo!\u201d chants. The new father, wearing the jersey of Sabres forward and occasional golf partner Alex Tuch, then chugged a can of beer before violently throwing it to the ground to a crescendo of cheers.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n AP NHL playoffs: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/stanley-cup and <\/a>https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boston Bruins left wing Viktor Arvidsson (71) celebrates his goal during the second period in Game 2 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[4114,6452,10544,154,2031,62914,2178,5,156,22490,6422,3034,4261,10617,3494,7610,11077,3492,47087,10616,60586,52361,7800,1745],"class_list":{"0":"post-557843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-alex-lyon","9":"tag-alex-tuch","10":"tag-bobby-orr","11":"tag-boston","12":"tag-bowen-byram","13":"tag-bruins-sabres-playoffs-score","14":"tag-david-pastrnak","15":"tag-hockey","16":"tag-jeremy-swayman","17":"tag-josh-allen","18":"tag-lindy-ruff","19":"tag-mattias-samuelsson","20":"tag-morgan-geekie","21":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","22":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","23":"tag-pavel-zacha","24":"tag-peyton-krebs","25":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","26":"tag-product-32550-ap-online-hockey-game-stories","27":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","28":"tag-product-40791-ap-massachusetts-sports-only","29":"tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","30":"tag-ukko-pekka-luukkonen","31":"tag-viktor-arvidsson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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