Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery had a bad feeling about Thursday’s head-to-head against the Sabres before he got out of bed Thursday morning.

Even with his team on a three-game win streak, Montgomery was not overly impressed with the B’s practice on Wednesday, and that factored in with three full days off between games, was a recipe for disaster.

• The Bruins lived it out in real time, too, as they were outshot by a 21-6 mark to begin the night, with Buffalo’s 21st shot of the evening beating Linus Ullmark for the first goal of the game and setting the stage for a 3-1 victory on TD Garden ice.

• In an 0-1 hole after a game-opening strike from the Sabres’ J.J. Peterka at the 1:18 mark of the second period, the Sabres doubled their lead when ex-Bruins defenseman Connor Clifton fed Tage Thompson for a one-time blast through Ullmark with 3:03 remaining in the period.

  Given the way the B’s looked in this game, that seemed to be about as close to a death blow as the Sabres could have delivered on Boston.

  But a funky bounce off the stick of Brad Marchand and through Devon Levi put the B’s on the board just 38 seconds after Thompson’s marker.

  Brad Marchand has scored Boston's last five goals.
  
  2-1 game. pic.twitter.com/jKPCN7EAkH

  — Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) December 8, 2023

  It wasn’t how Marchand and the Bruins drew it up, sure, but it was a deserved goal for Marchand in the sense that he was buzzing in the middle frame, with strong looks during Boston’s power-play opportunity and another just moments later prior to his strike.

• Down by just one goal through 40 minutes of play, it looked as if the Bruins were in position to ‘steal’ this one, but a Victor Olofsson marker scored just over the midway point of the third period was all the Sabres needed on a night headlined by Levi’s 31-save performance.

  In the crease for what was his first NHL start since Nov. 22 (and his first appearance since Nov. 25), Levi refused to give the Bruins any life, even when Boston opted for a 6-on-5 advantage for the final three minutes of regulation.

• 

  Dec 7, 2023; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Charlie Coyle (13) skates past Buffalo Sabres defenseman Ryan Johnson (33) during the first period at TD Garden. (Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports)

  Up front, the Bruins decided to give first-year pro Matt Poitras the night off. The ‘benching’ had nothing to do with the crafty center’s play, but was instead a scheduled night off, as the Bruins are looking to avoid burning Poitras out before the schedule ramps up even further.

  With Poitras out, the Bruins slide Oskar Steen back into the B’s lineup, and the Swedish wing skated to the right of Johnny Beecher and Jakub Lauko on Boston’s fourth line, and finished with three hits in 8:59 of time on ice.

  On the backend, Mason Lohrei returned to the NHL after a three-game stint back in the minors with AHL Providence. Lohrei’s return to Boston came with third-pairing stalwart and penalty-killing specialist Derek Forbort placed on the long-term injured reserve with a lingering lower-body ailment. With his move to the LTIR, Forbort will remain unavailable to the Bruins until Dec. 31 at the earliest.

  Thursday also came with a move in goal, as the Bruins recalled Brandon Bussi from the P-Bruins on an emergency basis. Bussi, who has six wins and a .917 save percentage through 12 games in the minors this year, was summoned up to the NHL with Jeremy Swayman currently unavailable to the B’s due to an illness.

  The Bruins will return to action Saturday afternoon when they welcome the Arizona Coyotes to Boston for a 1 p.m. puck drop. The B’s have not lost a home game to the Coyotes in Boston since Mar. 5, 2009.

  (Technically speaking, the Coyotes beat the Bruins in a ‘home’ game in Oct. 2010, but that game was played in Prague, not TD Garden.)

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