Alex Tuch and Mattias Samuelsson scored in the first period, Zach Benson added another early in the third and the Buffalo Sabres beat the Boston Bruins, 4-1, on Friday night in Game 6 to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2007.
Josh Norris added an empty-netter. Alex Lyon finished with 25 saves.
The 4-2 series victory is the latest milestone for Buffalo, which saw the end of its 14-year playoff drought by capturing its first Atlantic Division title. The 2007 season was also the last time the Sabres advanced to the second round. They lost in the conference finals that year.
Buffalo will play the winner if the Montreal-Tampa Bay series in the second round.
David Pastrnak scored the lone goal for the Bruins. Jeremy Swayman made 22 stops.
Tempers flared with 1 minute, 31 seconds to play after Benson tripped Charlie McAvoy. McAvoy responded with a slash at Benson. Both were sent to the penalty box.
It ends a feisty series comeback for the Bruins after earning a playoff berth in their first season under coach Marco Sturm. Boston has lost its last six home playoff games.
Trailing 2-1 in the third, the Bruins picked up their attack and had something working in the Sabres’ zone. But Josh Doan poked the puck away to start a break. He was pursued by Pastrnak and McAvoy toward the corner, when Doan flipped it back to a wide-open Zach Benson, who beat Swayman.
The Sabres’ speed dominated in the early going.
That changed 1:54 into the second period when a Buffalo turnover turned into a 2-on-1 break between Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha. Zacha passed to Pastrnak on the left side, and he fired it in from the faceoff circle to get the Bruins within 2-1. It marked his third goal in the series.
It was part of a second period that saw an increase in physical play that was mostly allowed by the referees. It included a more-than-nine-minute stretch without a stoppage of play.
The Sabres needed just 3:25 into the first period to open the scoring when Tuch guided in a touch pass in front of the net by Rasmus Dahlin.
Lightning force Game 7
Gage Goncalves scored off his own rebound at 9 minutes, 2 seconds of overtime, and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Montreal Canadiens, 1-0, on Friday night to force a Game 7 in the first-round series.
Goncalves scored soon after the Lightning killed scoring star Nikita Kucherov’s penalty for tripping Alexandre Carrier.
Game 7 is Sunday in Tampa. The Lightning are trying to avoid a fourth consecutive first-round exit, and the Canadiens are chasing their first series victory in five years.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves for Tampa Bay, and Jakub Dobes stopped 32 shots for Montreal. The first three games of the series also went to overtime.
The game was the second in three days to go to overtime scoreless, with Philadelphia beating the Pittsburgh Penguins, 1-0, on Wednesday night to end that series in six games. Before the season, the last 0-0 playoff game in regulation was in 2021.
Dobes and the Canadiens survived a flurry of shots on a late power play. The Lightning got the man advantage after Ivan Demidov broke in on Vasilevskiy, failed to score and was called for goalie interference.
Late in the second — with the Lightning’s Charle-Edouard D’Astous off for slashing Phillip Danault — Vasilevskiy stopped Demidov twice from close range.
Tampa Bay had a power-play chance early in the third after Kaiden Guhle was called for slashing Jake Guentzel. On the Lightning’s best chance, Kucherov fired a shot off the post.
Montreal had only one shot on goal on a power play to start the second period with Guentzel off for high-sticking Guhle with 11 seconds left in the first.
Danault kept it scoreless a few minutes later when he swept the puck away before it could cross the goal line. Montreal then killed Alexandre Texier’s high-sticking penalty.