Bruins come from behind to beat Sabres in OT, 4-3

Steve Conroy, Boston Herald on Mar 25, 2026

Published in Hockey

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After suffering a self-inflicted, deflating loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, the Boston Bruins had to face the hottest team in the league in the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday.

They were able to erase that bad taste left in their mouths with one of their best efforts of the season to grab two points in dramatic fashion.

Pavel Zacha scored 38 seconds into overtime to lift the Bruins to a come-from-behind 4-3 win over the Sabres.

As well as the B’s played, it looked like they would undone by a brutal half-minute in the third period.

The Bruins took a 2-1 lead into the third period and had been playing very, but another disastrous shift by Mason Lohrei evened it up. The B’s were at the end of another lackluster power play when the puck came out to the neutral zone. Lohrei went back to play it but, for the second straight night, he was outmuscled for the puck.

This time it was Zach Benson who took it from him and he went in alone, beating Joonas Korpisalo with a good backhand-forehand move to tie it at 5:21.

To compound his mistake, Lohrei took his frustrations out on Benson with a crosscheck that could not be ignored. Thirty-three seconds after Lohrei took a seat in the penalty box, Tage Thompson fed Jason Zucker for the go-ahead goal and Zucker’s second of the game.

As damaging as that was, the B’s scratched back to tie with 6:00 left in regulation. Jonathan Aspirot blasted a slapper from the blue line that bounced off the end boards right out front for former Sabre Casey Mittelstadt, who kicked the puck to his stick and scored his 14th past a scrambling Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

Each team scored once in the first period, though it appeared the Sabres were intent on flexing their muscle and their newfound elite status team early on. On the first shift of the game, Rasmus Dahlin got a away with an interference on Viktor Arvidsson but then took a crosscheck on Arvidsson just 21 seconds into the game.

But the B’s skittishness on the power play continued and it was the Sabres who had the better chances. Alex Tuch hit the post on a partial break. Then, as Dahlin exited the box, the defenseman had a 2-on-1 with Thompson but his pass did not make through to Thompson.

The B’s didn’t get their first shot on net until there were over eight minutes gone, but the B’s got the first goal of the at 11:07 on a solid meat-and-potatoes play.

After Fraser Minten won a neutral zone faceoff, Andrew Peeke dumped the puck into the Buffalo zone. Marat Khusnutdinov was the first forechecker in to disrupt the Sabre retrieval and it went to Minten, who fed David Pastrnak out front for the sniper’s 29th of the season, extending his point streak to 11 games.

But they could not get out of the first period unscathed.

Elias Lindholm took an offensive zone tripping penalty – O-zone stick fouls have been the bane of the B’s season – and the Sabres cashed in on the power play. The 6-foot-7 Thompson was able to dance around Khusnutdinov, move down low and feed Zucker in the slot for the equalizer at 15:18.

The B’s held an 11-7 shot advantage in the first.

In the second period, the B’s had a couple of chances that went by the wayside on a 4-on-4 situation. First it looked like Pastrnak would have a clean breakaway but before he gathered the puck, he toe-picked and fell down. Then the B’s had 3-on-1 but, behind the play Charlie McAvoy and Josh Norris were called for matching minors and the play was whistled dead.

But shortly after play went back to 5-on-5, the B’s took their second lead of the game at 9:15. It looked like Nikita Zadorov was going to give up an odd-man rush when the puck got behind him inside the Buffalo blue line but he was able to reach back and regain the puck, sending it back down low to an all-alone Pastrnak. Before he could make a real move, Luukkonen poked it away. But Arvidsson was following up the play and was able to knock it past the netminder for his 20th of the year.

The B’s had to kill off another offensive zone penalty, this one by Minten, but they were able to do so and get into the second intermission up, 2-1. The B’s held a 13-12 shot advantage in the second.

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