Sabres open their best-of-seven series vs. Boston on Sunday night
The Buffalo Sabres held an optional morning skate at KeyBank Center, where every seat was adorned with white towels saying “We’re Back”, in preparation for the opener of their first-round series against the Boston Bruins on Sunday night. Sabres fans level of excitement has been building since the club clinched a playoff spot to break the NHL record 14-season playoff drought, and is expected that thousands of fans will congregate at Canalside next to the arena to watch the game.
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff admitted that he is anxious to get started, as Buffalo will be in the primetime slot on ESPN on Day 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as is team captain Rasmus Dahlin, who will be playing in the first playoff game in his eighth NHL season.
“I try to stay away from (the emotions). It's hard to think about all the years and stuff, today especially, but we're in the moment. I'll probably reflect on it more when the season is over." Dahlin said. "But now, I just I'm ready to go, all I'm thinking about is having the best game of my career."
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The Sabres have a trio of players (Bowen Byram, Luke Schenn, and Tanner Pearson) that have won Stanley Cups and a pair who have reached the Cup Final (Alex Lyon, Ryan McLeod), but only Byram and McLeod will have a large role when the series behind. The bulk of their core group will be playing in their first postseason contest, something that Ruff believes could be an advantage.
"Everybody has a routine, we haven't broken off our routine. So I mean today, being an optional(skate), normal meetings, we went through our our pre-scout meetings this morning, keeping everything as normal as we possibly can, knowing that it's not quite as normal as it used to be," Ruff said. "I'm hoping that we are amped up, because it will be electric. it'll be a totally different feeling for sure. I'm looking forward to how our guys are going to react to it. We've talked about the energy we need to bring, how we need to play, and I anticipate them being ready to do it."
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