Boston Bruins mirror on season after 6 sudden playoff video games: ‘Surprised a lot of people’

BOSTON — The Boston Bruins performed six playoff video games in 2025-26. It was six greater than most observers believed after a 76-point 2024-25 season.

“You expect more of yourself,” Nikita Zadorov stated after Friday’s year-ending 4-1 Game 6 loss to the Buffalo Sabres in Round 1. “We only had high expectations in here about each other, and we pushed each other. But also it’s a step forward year for us. Nobody put us in the conversation in the summer. Nobody put us in the conversation in the season. We surprised a lot of people. We could have won the series. But we didn’t.”

The Bruins’ hearts had been damaged. They believed that they had the goaltending, defensive construction, physicality and well timed scoring to nudge previous the Sabres.

The actuality, nevertheless, was that they misplaced to a greater crew. The Sabres had extra offensive depth up entrance. Their high 4 defensemen managed play at each ends. Alex Lyon, who didn’t begin Games 1 and a pair of, completed the sequence with a .955 save proportion.

“There’s a reason they won the division,” David Pastrnak, the Game 5 additional time hero, stated. “Lot of skill and speed over there. Their D is very active offensively. They were better.”

At five-on-five, the Bruins had an anticipated targets share proportion of 47.1 %, per Natural Stat Trick. It was near their 46.66 xGF proportion fee in the course of the common season. In the six video games, the Bruins had extra all-situations photographs than the Sabres simply as soon as.

The Bruins weren’t that a lot worse. But within the playoffs, with the margins so skinny, the Sabres turned their possession benefit right into a Round 2 development. The Bruins may take their roster solely to date.

“We squeezed every drop out of this group,” stated Charlie McAvoy, tossed with 1:31 remaining for slashing Zach Benson. “Surprised a lot of people. We made it here. It’s not what we wanted. We thought once we got here, we could make some noise. Just didn’t play like it.”

During the common season, the Bruins had the second-best dwelling file (29-11-1). In the primary spherical, TD Garden turned hostile ice for the Bruins. In Game 6, similar to in Game 4, the Bruins had been disconnected within the first interval. They had been down two targets due to it. The Bruins didn’t have the firepower to get well in opposition to Lyon and the cellular Buffalo protection.

“Our system is created for us to play the same way as a unit of five all the time,” Zadorov stated. “At home, we got away from that a little bit. I’m not sure of the reason why. Maybe it’s getting a little too tight. Or it’s a little bit more freedom because you get different changes. I feel like on the road, we were the team we wanted to be.”

It additionally might be that it was simply dumb luck that the ability separating the 2 golf equipment simply occurred to manifest on the Garden. Rasmus Dahlin made a difference-making transfer by supporting the assault on the primary objective. First-liners Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch, two of the Sabres’ three largest forwards, stacked up in entrance of the web to display screen Jeremy Swayman on Mattias Samuelsson’s profitable objective. Josh Doan raced previous McAvoy and Pastrnak, the Bruins’ greatest skaters and two alternate captains, to arrange Benson’s intestine punch within the third.

At the opposite finish, Pastrnak had the Bruins’ solely objective: a two-on-one one-timer following a Buffalo giveaway in heart ice.

“We had a better goalie. Sway was unbelievable,” Pastrnak stated. “Obviously credit to both of them over there. But we didn’t make it hard enough.”

The Bruins didn’t need to hold taking part in. But they carried out above expectations to place themselves ready to go toe-to-toe with the Sabres.

“We were here for a reason,” coach Marco Sturm stated. “Played a hell of a season because of the character we have in that room. Unfortunately came up short.”

The Bruins might be again subsequent 12 months. Viktor Arvidsson and Andrew Peeke are the one pending unrestricted free brokers. Fraser Minten, Marat Khusnutdinov and James Hagens are resulting from take one other step ahead. Pastrnak, McAvoy and Swayman are foundational gamers. General supervisor Don Sweeney ought to be in place to bolster the blue line and add extra punch up entrance.

“No one really thought we would be in the midst of the playoffs,” Sturm stated. “Forget about playoffs, right? Look at us, 100-point season and battle really hard until the end. I just wanted them to know how proud I am. But also now we got a little taste. Sweens said it a couple months ago. We still have work to do.”