“I had a good feeling about that one,” Tuch said. “Very surprised they challenged it, with the fact that they’d go down on the kill, and then who knows what could happen from there. I wish we were able to capitalize on it, but we weren’t.”
The chaotic third period continued when the Bruins got a power play with 1:17 remaining. Buffalo survived until the horn, aided by Mattias Samuelsson’s huge shot block on Morgan Geekie, one of the NHL’s leading goal scorers in October.
“A penalty that we can’t take, but a couple huge blocks by Sammy, and just a real good kill that got us a point in the game,” Ruff said. “We’ve just got to stop giving away points in overtime.”
In their previous two games, at Toronto and versus Columbus, the Sabres lost third-period leads before falling in overtime. On Thursday, it took an impressive comeback to earn that same standings point. And Buffalo dominated for much of the game, recording a season-high 40 shots on goal and registering 19 high-danger scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick.
“You want to compare this game to the last game we played in here (a 3-1 loss Oct. 11) – no comparison,” Ruff continued. “… Just, we didn’t finish. Some of those really good opportunities right in front of the net that we have, they’ve got to go in the back of the net if you’re going to win a game like that.”
Here’s more from the overtime loss, which has the Sabres at 4-4-3 through 11 games.