With the Bruins facing elimination in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series against the Sabres, they needed their two-best players — David Pastrnak and Jeremy Swayman — to lead the way Tuesday night in Buffalo.
They delivered with an excellent performance in a 2-1 victory at KeyBank Center that extends the series to a Game 6 in Boston on Friday night.
Pastrnak really struggled in the two previous games in Boston. He was held without a point in those matchups, and in Game 4 he had only one shot. The superstar right wing played much more aggressively in Game 5 with a team-leading seven shots, and the final one resulted in the winning goal to help Boston stave off elimination.
Pastrnak did a great job to drag his left skate to stay onside, and then he beat Sabres goalie Alex Lyon with a fantastic move.
It was Pastrnak’s second career playoff OT goal. The first came in Game 7 of the 2024 first-round series versus the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“What a nice finish by him,” Bruins head coach Marco Sturm said postgame. “I’m just very happy because this guy puts a lot of pressure on himself and he wants to be the difference, and today he was.”
The Bruins had a 23-11 edge in shot attempts, a 12-4 advantage in shots on net, a 14-4 lead in scoring chances and a 6-1 differential in high-danger chances during Pastrnak’s 19:46 of even-strength ice time in Game 5, per Natural Stat Trick.
Scoring in big games is nothing new for Pastrnak. He has scored in four of the six Game 7s he’s played in his career. And he also has 13 points (seven goals, six assists) in 15 games in which the Bruins were facing elimination.
The Bruins have scored only four goals over the last three games. They need to increase their scoring output to have a real chance to win this series, and as a five-time 40-goal scorer, Pastrnak has to lead that charge.
Pastrnak wouldn’t have had a chance to win Game 5 if Swayman didn’t stand on his head all night. He gave another fantastic performance with 26 saves on 27 shots (.963 save percentage). He saved an impressive 1.96 goals above expected, and he stopped all five high-danger shots sent his way.
“He’s been great in every game,” Sturm said. “Believe it or not even last game, if it wasn’t for him it was 10-0 after the first period. He’s a big competitive guy and he showed it again today. Big moments, big games, he wanted the big guys to show up and he’s one of them, and he did it. He made a few really good saves. He was awesome.”
Swayman made a couple clutch saves late in the third period when the Sabres were making a strong push in search of the winning goal. He also made a huge stop on Sabres forward Alex Tuch shortly before Pastrnak’s winner.
The Bruins have had a tough time scoring on Lyon since he entered the series in the third period of Game 2, which has put an enormous amount of pressure on Swayman to be almost perfect each night. And so far, he’s been the Bruins’ top player in the series, and it’s not even close.
He has a .911 save percentage through five games, which is skewed downward by the team’s awful 6-1 loss in Game 4. If you take out that game — which wasn’t his fault by any means — he has a .937 save percentage in the other four matchups combined.
Swayman is the No. 1 reason why the Bruins exceeded expectations and made the playoffs this season, and he’s the No. 1 reason why they are still alive in this series.
And he’ll need to be the Bruins’ best player the rest of the way if they are going to complete what would be a historic series comeback.
