BUFFALO, NY -- Game 1 did not end the way the Boston Bruins hoped. The Bruins led 2-0 through the first 52 minutes, and seemed to be on their way to a massive Game 1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres.
They wound up allowing four straight goals en route to a 4-3 loss, a devastating one at that.
Bruins Head Coach Marco Sturm was still processing last night
"I thought we were in the perfect spot," Sturm said. "We were exactly where we wanted to play, being in that position, five-six minutes left in a game... "[It's] really unfortunate, because my guys played really well. Really well. But that's playoffs, that's something we have to learn again, the hard way. We just got to stick with it for 60 minutes."
This morning, Sturm doubled down on the back half of that message.
"There's always areas to improve. But, again, overall, we were really good, really detailed, I liked our structure. So there were a lot of good things.
Again, we lost the game, so that means we did something wrong, and that's something we touched on today and try to improve tomorrow."
After Buffalo had scored to make it 2-1 and the building came to life, Sturm threw out the line of James Hagens, Fraser Minten, and Marat Khusnutdinov to respond.
Hagens came flying down the wing and nearly even scored:
Then, after Mattias Samuelsson gave the Sabres a 3-2 lead, Sturm again turned to The Kid Line, right in the heart of the storm and chaos.
Asked this morning why he went with that line, Sturm gave a blunt answer.
"They were our best defensive line yesterday," Sturm said. "I thought they never really got in trouble. Played really solid."
That's an incredible level of praise and honor for the youngsters, with the trio being dubbed better than every other line for Boston yesterday.
That Sturm trusted them to make the situation better, not worse, for Boston speaks volumes about the players involved.