Ristolainen opened the scoring 5:25 into the game when he scored on the power play. Parked in front of the net, the Sabres defenseman muscled the puck into the net to put the Sabres ahead.
While Sabres fans might not be used to seeing Ristolainen as a net-front presence, it's a position he's quite familiar with. He said he played there often in Finland, prior to making the NHL.
"I like it there," he told Brian Duff during the first intermission on MSG. "That's where you get a lot of goals. …Try to make some chaos and try to screen the goalie for our other players and it worked out."
The Sabres were strong for most of that period, but couldn't break through to extend their one-goal lead. Buffalo outshot the Bruins 17-4 in the first period and spent a majority of the opening 20 minutes in the offensive zone.
The Bruins, however, were able to even things up before the end of the period when Marchand scored his first goal with 6:08 remaining.
His second goal came on a deflection with the man advantage with 5:15 to go in the second period.
In the final minute of the middle frame, Ullmark made a terrific save on Jake DeBrusk and then Jeff Skinner hit the post just before the horn sounded.
Minutes after Pastrnak scored early in the third, Rask made perhaps his best save of the night. While shorthanded, he reached out with the glove side of his blocker hand to stop a chance by Evan Rodrigues.
Montour scored with a clean one-timer from the point with 7:02 left in regulation to put Buffalo back in the game. Buffalo maintained some pressure in the final minutes, but were unable to beat Rask again.
