Bad-blood rivalry could be rekindled\u00a0in Round 1<\/p>\n
The Sabres and Bruins will have a chance to rekindle their once-fierce rivalry. It\u2019s one that hasn\u2019t been played on the Stanley Cup Playoffs stage since 2010, but the Sabres and Bruins have played eight playoff series against each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might take just one play inside the game to develop bad blood,\u201d said Ruff, who played in three of those series and coached two more.<\/p>\n
Ruff said it\u00a0historically\u00a0mirrored an \u201carms\u00a0race\u201d with the two teams jostling to see who could bring a tougher group to the fight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s ample skill on both teams,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0an underlying physicality\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0made the\u00a0Sabres\u00a0and Bruins successful.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0an element\u00a0the\u00a0Sabres\u00a0thrived\u00a0with\u00a0during the regular season, highlighted by a 3-0-1 record\u00a0against\u00a0the Tampa Bay Lightning,\u00a0who use a physical style to disrupt other teams.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bruins\u2019\u00a0fourth line\u00a0of\u00a0Tanner Jeannot, Sean\u00a0Kuraly\u00a0and Mark Kastelic like to play with a physical edge. Defenseman Nikita\u00a0Zadorov\u00a0and Kastelic\u00a0finished\u00a0first and second, respectively,\u00a0in penalty minutes\u00a0in the NHL,\u00a0while Beck\u00a0Malenstyn\u00a0ranked fifth in the league with 282 hits\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the\u00a0Sabres\u2019\u00a0single-season record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the series may not resemble the old bloodbaths the Sabres and Bruins used to have, some of these new pieces could reinvigorate the rivalry.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt times, we’ve been a real, physical team,\u201d Ruff said. \u201cI think that’s been part of our strength where we can wear people down. Part of our goal is to try be physical, be hard, go through people. I think their answer is the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is always the time of the year where everything gets elevated. Some of the guys that maybe aren’t quite as tenacious become tenacious. … That’s the fun part about the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bad-blood rivalry could be rekindled\u00a0in Round 1 The Sabres and Bruins will have a chance to rekindle their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-589752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}