Bruins come back to beat Sabres in overtime on Zacha’s game-winner
The Bruins came dangerously close to blowing a game with self-inflicted mistakes, but instead delivered one of their biggest wins of the season.
Pavel Zacha fired the game-winning goal in overtime, as the Boston Bruins came back from down 3-2 in the third period to win 4-3 and grab two huge points in the battle for playoff positioning in the Eastern Conference. Zacha is now up to 24 goals and 54 points on the season after the two-point night and clutch goal.
The win lifts the Bruins (40-24-8) to 88 points, giving them a three-point lead over the idle Ottawa Senators and New York Islanders in the east wild card race. The Sens and Isles will need to pick up two points on Thursday night in their respective games just to get back within one, and it won't be easy, as Ottawa gets the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York gets the Dallas Stars.
Casey Mittelstadt had previously tied the game 3-3 with just six minutes left in regulation, taking advantage of a pair of fortuitous bounces after gaining inside ice near Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
Prior to Mittelstadt's goal, it appeared that Bruins could end up with no points at all. They'd entered the third period with a 2-1 lead after cleaning up early issues with defense and turnovers, but similar problems resurfaced in the third. At the tail end of a power play, defenseman Mason Lohrei attempted to settle the puck along the boards near his own blue line, but instead coughed it up to the Sabres' Zach Benson, who zoomed into the zone and beat goaltender Joonas Korpisalo down low to tie it 2-2.
Lohrei compounded his own problems by crosschecking Benson after the goal, gifting the Sabres a power play on top of the tying score. Just 33 seconds later, Buffalo winger Jason Zucker cashed in with a power play goal, his second of the game and 22nd of the season, to put his team up 3-2.
David Pastrnak opened the scoring just over 11 minutes into the first period, his 29th of the year, but Zucker answered less than five minutes later, making it a 1-1 tie entering the middle frame.
This is where the B's tightened up their neutral zone defense to limit the Sabres' rushes, which allowed them to tilt the ice in their favor and get more pucks deep into the Buffalo zone. Eventually, Viktor Arvidsson finished one of those opportunities, whacking home a rebound off a Pastrnak point-blank try to put the B's on top. The goal, Arvidsson's 20th of the season, marked the sixth time in his career that he reached that mark and first time since the 2022-23 season.
The B's will enter Thursday tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the third spot in the Atlantic Division, but the Habs hold the tiebreaker with the superior point percentage and have two games in hand. Regardless, it was a resilient comeback for the Bruins after self-inflicted mistakes nearly sank them, and a win that will be remembered as critical if and when they get into the playoffs.
Up Next: It won't get much easier for the Bruins, who head back home Saturday to take on the Minnesota Wild, who have the third-most points in the Western Conference with 92.
