The Boston Bruins and blown leads in the playoffs are basically the hockey equivalent of a rom com.
In 2004, the Bruins, who won the Northeast Division that season, had a 3-1 lead on the Montreal Canadiens before losing their first-round series in seven games.
Six years later, the Bruins would infamously blow a 3-0 series lead in their second-round encounter with the Philadelphia Flyers and a 3-0 lead in Game 7. The Flyers ultimately went on to represent the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final.
In 2013, the Bruins watched a 3-1 series lead slip away in the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and then went down 4-1 in Game 7 before rallying to force overtime and win the series.
Unfortunately for Boston, the Leafs came a-knocking thrice, with two more first-round series between the two teams (2018 and 2024) seeing the Bruins go up 3-1 before the Leafs forced the matchup to the distance. Toronto ultimately fumble the bag in Game 7 on both occasions.
In 2023, the Bruins won a Presidents' Trophy in dominant fashion. They then proceeded to put the Florida Panthers on the brink of elimination after winning three of the first four games of their first-round series. But we all know how the story goes: the Bruins blow the 3-1 lead, they get forced to Game 7, and they lose.
Why does this have anything to do with the Buffalo Sabres being forced to Game 6 against the Bruins?
It's simple. Only a few days ago, the Sabres held a 3-1 lead and Boston proceeded to put together their best performance of the series since Game 2, winning 2-1 in overtime. While the series/game lead curse has hung over the Bruins repeatedly over the past 20-plus years, it's fair to hope that the curse doesn't get transferred over to the Sabres. This is especially true when considering that the Sabres just ended a playoff curse of their own.
I'm no believer in superstition, but taking another curse on isn't exactly the best idea at this point in time.
I used the term "reverse Minnesota" already at one point during this series. Since it's clearly a "reverse season" in a way, let's call this a "reverse Boston."
For the Bruins, their past two blown series leads have come courtesy of a combination of factors.
One such factor is that of goal scoring. In their first four games against the Panthers, the Bruins scored a total of 16 goals, which is roughly on par with the 3.71 goals scored per game that they posted during the regular season.
While the Bruins mustered 11 goals during the final three games of the series, the Panthers scored 15 times over that span. Prior to Game 5, the Panthers recorded at least three goals just once during the series, with the same Boston defense that conceded just over two goals per game during the regular season doing their job to a tee. But from Game 5 to Game 7, the Panthers scored three goals or more in each of the three games.
The Bruins' near-collapse during the first round of the 2024 playoffs also supports this point. The Bruins might not have had the world-beating defense that they did in 2023, but they did still give up the third-fewest goals in the Eastern Conference. That said, the Leafs not only scored almost 40 goals more than Boston during the regular season, but they also scored the second-most amount of goals during the 2023-24 regular season, with only the Colorado Avalanche besting them.
Even then, the Bruins effectively shut down the Leafs throughout the series, holding them to just 12 goals while all but giving ex-head coach Sheldon Keefe his pink slip. It therefore seemed that Boston would have the better goalscoring as they would record at least three goals in three of the series' first four games. Each time they did so, they won.
It was when the goal scoring dried up and the Leafs' goaltending came to play that the Bruins' goalscoring effectively went south like a flock of birds preparing for the winter. Even though the Leafs could not score more than three goals (story of the Leafs in the playoffs I guess), the Bruins' inability to do so allowed the Leafs to secure the Game 5 win in overtime and a closely-contested Game 6 to crawl back into the series.
It's also worth noting that the small moments also cost the Bruins while providing their opponents with game-changing opportunities. Late in Game 5 against the Panthers, Brad Marchand had a last-minute breakaway opportunity stopped by goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. It's easy to argue that Bobrovsky's save gave the Panthers some much-needed hope heading into that overtime period, one that would spark the Bruins' collapse in the series.
How does Buffalo learn from Boston's failures?
Just keep scoring. It's that simple.
The first two games were proof of this. When Boston scored early and often, the Sabres could seldom stop them. And because Boston was able to grab the lead first, they could control the tempo of the game and put themselves in position to cruise to wins.
But when the Sabres ramped up the offensive pressure, the Bruins had little to no response. While the Bruins were nonetheless eight minutes away from the Game 1 win, the Sabres' ability to ramp up the pressure on offense forced the Bruins to eventually concede a goal; in doing so, the Sabres snatched any and all answers the Bruins had defensively.
In terms of the goaltending, Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman outdueled the Leafs' netminders for the majority of their first-round encounter in 2024; he's shown flashes of that same performance at times during this series with the Sabres. The lack of screens and turnovers meant that Swayman could effectively snuff out many of the chances coming his way during the first two games. But when the Sabres completely flipped the script and made the Bruins' defense look like a field of pumpkins (not the ones from the animated Stranger Things series), Swayman could only carry his team for so long.
So, if Buffalo is to end this series before Boston can force it back to Buffalo for a Game 7, they need to do exactly what they did in Game 4, what the Panthers did in 2023, and what the Leafs couldn't do but somehow almost got away with in 2024: score. History has proven that this is the case, and it could very well be the difference between ending the Bruins' hopes and giving an experienced playoff side the exact scenario that they've been able to convert several times before.
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