BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tage Thompson had never played in a Stanley Cup playoff game before Sunday night. So he had never felt what he was feeling when the Sabres were trailing the Boston Bruins 2-0 with less than eight minutes left in the third period.
The fans in Buffalo had waited 15 years to watch their team in the playoffs again, and Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said he could feel the arena shaking before puck drop thanks to the energy from the crowd. But the Bruins had sucked much of that energy out of the building. Jeremy Swayman was making every save, and Boston’s defensive structure was making it difficult for the Sabres to get quality chances. The Sabres were controlling the game, but the opportunistic Bruins had managed a 2-0 lead anyway.
That’s when teams need their star players to take over. And Thompson, who has three 40-goal seasons, did just that, scoring his first two postseason goals to draw the Sabres even and jumpstart a 4-3 comeback win that gave Buffalo a 1-0 series lead. A lack of playoff experience didn’t seem to bother Thompson and his teammates in the third period.
“I mean, lack of experience?” Thompson said. “We’ve been in games that have prepared us for this. I think eight years of adversity is enough experience to get you ready for something like this. I think any time you go eight years not making playoffs and then it’s finally here, the last thing you want is regret. There’s just a heightened feeling of hunger. You just don’t want to let this opportunity slip. I thought tonight was really important to make a statement and set our standard. I think we still have another level to get to. We’re just going to keep trying every game to find another level.”
Thompson has built his reputation on highlight reel goals, but his first playoff goal was a greasy one. He snagged a loose puck behind the net and then tucked it in before Swayman realized where the puck was. That brought all of the pregame energy rushing back into the building and ignited the Sabres’ bench.
“The place just erupted,” defenseman Mattias Samuelsson said. “And you could feel the energy building. I think, as a group, we thought once we crack them, we could roll from there.”
Thompson wasn’t done. Less than four minutes later, Alex Tuch forced a turnover behind Boston’s net, and Thompson outworked two Bruins to get possession of the puck. He quickly stepped out front and ripped a shot that beat Swayman glove side to tie the game.
“We always talk about, ‘Dogs have to be dogs,’ and today he showed up and led the team,” Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin said. “That was special. We’re gonna need him more.”
And as Thompson keyed the comeback, the Sabres weren’t going to sit back and play for overtime.
“The bench was electric,” Ruff said. “The players were talking about going and getting a third one. The energy on the bench, the emotion of the bench was where you needed it to be in a playoff game.”
After a long night of dealing with the Bruins’ tight coverage in the defensive zone, the Sabres sliced it up repeatedly in the third period. They had a 38-20 advantage in shots and a 35-18 edge in scoring chances. Swayman looked capable of stealing the game at times, but the Sabres didn’t stray from the plan that was allowing them to control the action.
“It’s just death by 1,000 cuts, I think,” Thompson said. “You just keep wearing on him, wearing on him until you finally crack him, and we did.”
After the Sabres tied it, Ryan McLeod chipped a puck into the offensive zone. The Bruins botched the retrieval, and Jack Quinn won the race to the loose puck. He then cut out front and found Samuelsson with a perfect pass. Samuelsson shot just as Jason Zucker was cutting in front of the net to screen Swayman. The puck went in, and the structural integrity of KeyBank Center seemed to be at risk in the moments that followed.
“It’s probably the loudest I’ve ever heard in my life,” goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said. “It’s just one of those things you can’t really — you know that it’s going to be loud, you know it’s going to be electric, but you never can kind of imagine how loud it’s going to get.”
Sabres fans had been partying outside the arena since 4 p.m, three and a half hours before puck drop. They teared up at the team’s hype video, sang the national anthem and filled the building with “Sabres on the warpath!” chants throughout the first period. And when Tuch scored an empty net goal to put the Sabres up 4-2, they started that party all over again. It didn’t matter that David Pastrnak scored a late power-play goal to cut the lead to 4-3 with eight seconds left. By then, the fans who had waited so long to celebrate another playoff win were already losing their minds.
When Thompson and Samuelsson were making their way from the locker room to their postgame news conferences, they both kept talking about the fans. They couldn’t wait to see the videos of the scenes outside the building before and after the game.
Coming into this game, Bruins coach Marco Sturm talked about his team being bigger and stronger. He wanted the game to be low-event, knowing that the Bruins don’t have the team speed to play at the Sabres’ pace. The Sabres did outskate the Bruins for most of this game, but they also had a 53-38 advantage in hits. Samuelsson had nine of those in what was a dominant playoff debut.
On the topic of playoff debuts, six Sabres players had a point, five of whom had never played in a playoff game before this one. The Sabres heard all week about their lack of playoff experience. That might not be a factor going forward.
“I told them right after the game, ‘You want experience? You got it now,’” Ruff said. “I mean, what an experience. If you’re going to say, ‘This was my first playoff game,’ you’ve got a great story to tell.”
As for Ruff, he came into this game having coached 2,070 NHL games between the regular season and playoffs. He’s lived in Buffalo since 1979 and now coached or played for this team in some capacity in every decade since. He’s coached the Sabres in the playoffs in four different decades. He was still catching his breath, his voice hoarse in his postgame news conference. Asked whether this win or his first playoff win was sweeter, Ruff cracked a wide grin.
“This one right here, right here, right now,” Ruff said. “We just gotta go try to win one more. But this was probably the sweetest of all of them.”