Sabres lose to Bruins in first game since Krueger fired as coach

BUFFALO -- The Buffalo Sabres lost 4-1 to the Boston Bruins in Don Granato's debut as their coach at KeyBank Center on Thursday.

The Sabres, who fired coach Ralph Krueger and assistant Steve Smith on Wednesday, have lost 13 straight games (0-11-2).
"The bottom line is we need to move forward," Granato said. "We need to demand more, obviously. Push harder. All of us: coaches, players, everybody. And again, practice is something that is another opportunity to do just those things. Certainly, that will be a focus."

David Krejci had three assists, including his 700th NHL point, and David Pastrnak had a goal and an assist for Boston (16-8-4), which won for the third time in seven games. Jarsolav Halak made 23 saves.
"I think Bruins fans know his importance, especially come playoff time, he really brings it every year," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said of Krejci. "So to have that 1-2 punch with him and Patrice Bergeron]. As for heating up, it's been well-documented, we need our centermen to drive the lines they're on, and he's a big part of it. … Congrats to [Krejci
tipped in defenseman Matt Grzelcyk's point shot at 2:56 of the first period to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead.
Okposo tied it 1-1 at 1:54 of the second period, scoring shorthanded when his shot from above the right face-off circle deflected off Grzelcyk's stick into the top right corner. It was Okposo's first goal of the season in his 24th game and his first regular-season shorthanded goal in the NHL.
"It was definitely nice to see that one go in," Okposo said. "The longer the zero sits there in that column, the more it weighs on you. But, yeah, I mean, it's nice, but same time, we have a lot of stuff to correct and we've got to take a deep dive into what's going on here from everybody. It's systemic. Like, the whole way through. We have some work to do."

Jake DeBrusk batted in the rebound of a Pastrnak shot on the power play to put the Bruins ahead 2-1 at 9:15. Krejci got the second assist to reach 700 points.
It was DeBrusk's third goal of the season and second in four games.
"Happy he scored, obviously, because like I said, he is as scorer," Cassidy said. "We measure him by them. He really measures himself by them, obviously. So when he gets rewarded, it really fuels him. So that's good. Hopefully, he gets hot. We need it."
Craig Smith extended the lead to 3-1 at 18:36 when he scored from the slot after Krejci poked a loose puck to him.
"It's been incredible," Smith said of playing with Krejci. "Obviously, it felt good to get one in there, but [Krejci], he's a great player. He's able to slow it down, he's one of the smartest players I've played with as far as talking on the bench and little plays he sees out there."
Pastrnak scored on a one-timer from the left circle off a pass from Krejci on a 5-on-3 power play to make it 4-1 at 4:44 of the third period.
"I felt today, at least within our own game, we established at least a decent pace, and we didn't sustain it," Granato said. "I could say we couldn't sustain it, but the fact is we didn't sustain it. So now you look into that and say, 'OK, how can we sustain it?' It might be better puck management. Did we mismanage pucks tonight that cost us more energy in getting them back? When you mismanage a puck, you put yourself in a bad position and spend more energy to recover it, not feeling you were going to, obviously, misplay a puck. So they all tie in, but I do believe our guys played with, at least at the outset, a good pace in sustaining it again."
NOTES: Krejci is the eighth player in Bruins history to score 700 points. He has 494 assists, two behind Rick Middleton for seventh in Boston history (496). … Bruins forward Trent Frederic left the game at 18:38 of the first period with a lower-body injury after he was hit by a puck. Cassidy said X-rays were negative. ... The Sabres are 0-for-19 on the power play in their past 12 games.