The Buffalo Sabres dropped game 2, 4-2, to the Boston Bruins in the first round of the 2026 NHL playoffs.
In the first period, Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Lukkonen stood on his head, coming up with two shorthanded breakaway saves. As the LUUUK chants stormed around KeyBank Center, Buffalo went on to kill two penalties in the first 20 minutes of play.
Things shifted pretty quickly in the second period. Just like in Game 1, Boston struck first. Viktor Arvidsson put the Bruins on the board with a backhand goal 4:53 into the second. Later in the period, Bruins forward Morgan Geekie flipped up the puck from center ice as he was heading off for a line change. The puck unexpectedly bounced its way past Lukkonen, silencing KeyBank Center as Boston went up 2-0.
After the game, Luukkonen took full accountability for the mistake,
"Of course, it's my fault," said Luukkonen, "There's no way around it, you just got to do better with those. But I feel like, you know, the biggest thing for me personally is that in those situations, if there's a bad bounce, bad goal, you kind of have to stop the bleeding. But I wasn't able to do that tonight.”
The bleeding, as UPL put it, continued. Moments later, Bruins forward David Pastrnak followed it up by dishing a nice pass to Pavel Zacha, who put in a beautiful redirect goal on the power play, making it 3-0 Boston.
16 seconds into the third period, Arvidsson put Boston up 4-0. The Sabres pulled goaltender Lukkonen and replaced him with Alex Lyon.
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said after the game that he is not concerned at all about the Buffalo goaltending.
"We've seen over the years. You see goals like that. You know, it took a little bit of a hard right when it landed and ended up going in. This team has been so good about winning together; we lose together. I'm not going to sit here and criticize that goal," said Ruff.
Ruff added that he went into the locker room and encouraged his team after the loss.
"I walked into the dressing room, I said, there are a lot of things I like about our team, and I like about our play. There are areas we're going to have to get better at, but don't want to see one person doubting that we're not going to go into Boston winning hockey games. Overall, you won’t win every hockey game. They got to experience a playoff win, and now they experience a playoff loss. We’ve been a good road team. I am looking forward to going to Boston,” said Ruff.
With under 7 minutes to go, KeyBank Center began to empty just as Buffalo defenseman Bowen Byram put the Sabres on the board, breaking the Boston shutout. A few moments later, with 4:52 left in regulation, Peyton Krebs made it 4-2. The Sabres pulled their goalie for the final 4 plus minutes of regulation, but were unable to strike with the extra attacker.
Buffalo's offensive execution has been poor through the first two games, especially on the power play. 0 for 5 on Tuesday night, 0 and 9 over the course of the first two games. Ruff addressed it, saying, "There's an execution element that we're just not executing at high enough," adding, "It's been a little frustrating. We had some good looks tonight that could have been goals," said Ruff.
With the series tied, both teams head to Game 3 on Thursday night in Boston. Puck drop is at 7 PM.