Bruins rally past Sabres on Kuraly goal in overtime

BUFFALO -- Sean Kuraly scored with 1:16 remaining in overtime to give the Boston Bruins a 3-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Saturday.

Kuraly got to his own rebound in front and gave Boston its first win this season when trailing after two periods (1-11-1).
"We talked about between periods that we've got to get to the net a little bit more, and really my mindset was the first one's probably not going to go in," he said. "Just get there and see what happens, and banked on the forward maybe playing it not as good as a defenseman would."
WATCH: [All Bruins vs. Sabres highlights]
Jake DeBrusk forced overtime when he tied it 2-2 with 2:29 left in the third period, tipping Torey Krug's shot from the left face-off circle. Noel Acciari scored, and Tuukka Rask made 26 saves for the Bruins (21-14-4), who had lost two straight games and play the Chicago Blackhawks next in the 2019 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Notre Dame Stadium on Tuesday.
Marco Scandella had a goal and an assist, Johan Larsson scored, and Carter Hutton made 39 saves for the Sabres (21-12-6).

"I thought we played a very strong 60 minutes," Buffalo coach Phil Housley said. "You can't fault our effort. We attacked the game. It's going to be like this for the rest of the season where it's going to be tight. I thought we looked comfortable in the situation. We got opportunities to be up by two but didn't capitalize, but we played strong."
Scandella gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 4:40 of the first period off a rebound after Rask made a sprawling save on Jeff Skinner.
"Just trying to be aggressive," Scandella said. "I saw an opportunity to jump on the rush and go to the net. Sometimes you get rewarded so I'm just trying to be aggressive."
Acciari tied it 1-1 at 9:30 after a loose puck bounced out to him from behind the net.

Larsson put the Sabres ahead 2-1 at 5:43 of the second period when he scored shorthanded off a cross-ice pass from Evan Rodrigues. It was Buffalo's first shorthanded goal of the season and the eighth Boston has allowed.
"You can't go too long without wins otherwise the talk starts and squeezing the stick starts and people get nervous," Boston coach Bruce Cassidy said. "We have good character in our room so I think we'd be fine but it's inevitable, doubt starts to creep in. To be able to come back, that's another feather in our cap for being able to do it that way."

They said it

"He's got speed, he can skate with anybody; 3-on-3 in open ice, if someone gets separation … you get into a lot of those foot races so Sean can be a good overtime guy. He keeps it simple and goes to the net." -- Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy on forward Sean Kuraly

"We got some secondary (scoring) today with [Scandella and Larsson]. We can't rely on the primaries in [Jack Eichel, Skinner and Sam Reinhart]. We have to find a way to chip in."-- Sabres forward Evan Rodrigues

Need to know

Rask played in his 468th NHL game, tying Tiny Thompson for the most by a Bruins goalie. … Reinhart's assist on Scandella's goal was his 30th of the season, tying his NHL career high set in 2016-17.

What's next

Bruins: Play the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2019 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Notre Dame Stadium on Tuesday (1 p.m. ET; NBC, SN, TVAS)
Sabres: Host the New York Islanders on Monday (6 p.m. ET; MSG-B, MSG+, NHL.TV)