Bruins Too Tough For Sabres, Win 5-2

The Boston Bruins rolled into Buffalo last night with one goal in mind, a win. The Sabres also had one goal in mind, a much needed win on home ice. Boston was able to come out with a 5-2 victory that made the Sabres look like a pee wee hockey team just skating around watching the “big boys” play.

Boston and Buffalo have a long history over brutal games stemming back to the 70s and 80s and last night was no exception. Buffalo’s Ryan Miller was still upset about a hit from Boston’s Milan Lucic last year that saw him miss a few games, while Lucic received nothing. There is also something to fight about when these two teams play each other so last night was no exception.

The game started off decent for the Bruins, and as usual not so decent for the Sabres. Miller let in a soft goal by Lucic almost at the halfway point of the first to give Boston the lead. Lucic would add another a mere 40 seconds into the second to give Boston a 2-0 lead. Buffalo’s lacking power play was finally able to break through in the second with a goal by Cody Hodgson and cut Boston’s lead in half. However, 2 minutes later Boston would get their two goal lead back by a goal from Dougie Hamilton, his second of the season. Buffalo was able to get on the board again with a goal by 18 year old Nikita Zadorov, his first of his NHL career.

The third period saw the most action in this game as Buffalo’s John Scott made a questionable hit on Boston’s Loui Eriksson. Scott would receive 2 major penalties, one for charging and one for fighting, and would be gone for the rest of the game. Eriksson was helped off the ice and spent the night in Buffalo for observation and will return to Boston sometime on Thursday. If you actually watched the game on NBS, the commentators felt the hit was wrong, which is expected coming from them, but many fans around Buffalo have felt that Scott was just finishing his hit and he was not going in with the intent to injury. This issue may get brought up to the league so we will have to see where it goes from there. During this period there was also some scoring going on, with two more goals from Boston to seal the deal. Both goals came from Torey Krug, one just before the Scott hit and one during his 5 minute penalty.

Ryan Miller played another great game for the Sabres, even though he let in 5 shots. At the other end, Bruins backup Chad Johnson only faced 16 shots and let in 2.

Miller and the Sabres head to Florida to face the Panthers on Friday still looking for the second win this season. Tuukka Rask is expected to be back in goal for Boston when they play host to the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.