Was there an unscheduled Godzilla attack on Boston set for Sunday afternoon? Okay, that joke is seven years behind its time, but the way the Buffalo Sabres destroyed the Boston Bruins' plans for the vast majority of Game 4 made it seem like there was.
In fact, the Sabres dominated so easily that the only Bruins that were able to counter the Sabres were goaltender Jeremy Swayman (minus the first period) and the anthem singer Todd Angilly (he's no Rene Rancourt but he's sure got charisma).
And, as a result of their 6-1 win over the Bruins, the Sabres now have a commanding 3-1 series lead over Boston and three chances to end the series. The first will come on Tuesday night at KeyBank Center; undoubtedly, the Buffalo faithful will ensure their barn is incredibly loud, as it was for Games 1 and 2.
Do the numbers suggest that Buffalo will win Game 5?
When considering the surface-level statistics, one gets a mixed bag of results.
In last year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, there were six series in which a team won Game 4 and, by extension, took a 3-1 series lead into the next game. All but one of those series ended in five games. The lone exception was the second-round series between the Winnipeg Jets and the Dallas Stars; despite taking a 3-1 lead in the series, the Stars were blanked in Game 5. That said, Stars would go on to win Game 6 on home ice.
At the same time, it is worth noting that during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, only two of the five teams that won Game 4 to take a 3-1 series lead would go on to end the series the following game.
While the Sabres don't have any recent postseason results to ensure an effective comparison, the Sabres did have seven two-game winning streaks during the regular season, making up 14 of their 50 wins on the season. That fact does get neutralized when considering that the Sabres also had six win streaks of three games or more, making up a total of 34 wins on the season. As a result, fans can say that there is roughly a 50-50 chance that the Sabres will win Game 5, extending their postseason winning streak to three games.
But if the Sabres don't win Game 5? The regular season results do still paint an optimistic picture; the Sabres only had six multi-game losing streaks during the regular season (one of which consisted of a string of overtime losses), the longest of which was four games.
What do the Sabres have to do to win Game 5?
It's simple: replicate the success of Game 4.
A big reason why the Bruins got into an early 4-0 hole was because they simply could not get out of their zone, or turnovers stopped them from exiting their own zone.
Let's take Peyton Krebs' opening goal as an example. Buffalo's ability to stop Boston from getting out of their own zone and establishing the neutral zone allowed the Sabres to re-enter Boston's end with a three-on-one, which would end with Alex Tuch getting the puck to Krebs for the opening goal of the game.
That ability to snuff out the Sabres' pressure has been part of Boston's early success in this series; such success would either end with the Bruins heading up ice or Swayman making a timely save. But without the numbers back to defend, the Bruins' defense was consistently hung out to dry, with one one or, at best, two defenders waiting for the Sabres' oncoming stampede.
With the home-ice advantage now behind the Sabres, Boston will likely find it much harder to communicate and get breakouts going, increasing the risk that Buffalo stops a handful of them and forces the Bruins to defend for long stretches.
I'd also like to take note of the "Swayman" chants that rained down during Game 4. They might not have had that much success during the first two home games, but the Sabres' ability to take the TD Garden crowd out of Game 4 allowed the Sabres fans that were in attendance (it seemed like there was a 70-30 split between Bruins and Sabres fans) to let the home team hear it.
Now imagine that fan support factor gets reversed and doubled, no wait tripled. That's more or less what's going to await Swayman and the Bruins as they head to Buffalo for a do-or-die contest on Tuesday night.
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