Luukkonen wins NHL debut, Sabres end Bruins winning streak at six

BUFFALO -- Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 36 saves in his NHL debut, and the Buffalo Sabres ended the Boston Bruins' six-game winning streak with a 6-4 victory at KeyBank Center on Friday.

"Of course it's first game, first win. Those are things which will stay for a long time," said Luukkonen, a 22-year-old from Espoo, Finland. "I think just the game as itself, the first shot got in. And then kind of got through that. In the end there were a couple of goals too. It wasn't probably the way I thought it would be, but in the end, we got the win. And it means a lot."
Sam Reinhart scored a hat trick, Rasmus Dahlin had a goal and an assist, and Mattias Samuelsson had two assists for the Sabres (13-28-7), who avoided a three-game sweep.
"I was very happy and impressed with our guys," Buffalo coach Don Granato said. "We played with a lot of frustration yesterday (a 5-1 loss), specifically on the power play, and I thought that carried over into our 5-on-5 game, that frustration. We could have late in the game, but the chatter on the bench was outstanding, the posture of the guys on the bench. Just listening to them speak after we gave up a couple goals and it was close, very commanding voices in initiative taking responses by them. So, that was very nice to see as far as the psychology of it goes."
Buffalo ended a 10-game losing streak against Boston, winning for the first time since Dec. 16, 2018.

Steven Kampfer had a goal and two assists for the Bruins (27-13-6), who scored three goals in the third period to pull within one. Tuukka Rask allowed four goals on 28 shots before being replaced by Jaroslav Halak early in the third period. Halak allowed one goal on five shots.
The Bruins are fourth in the eight-team MassMutual East Division, six points ahead of the New York Rangers, who defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 on Friday. The Bruins have two games in hand on the Rangers. The top four teams qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
"We lost some puck battles tonight and I thought our breakout obviously at times looked very good, other times we just self-inflicted," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. "I think guys fell into different categories. You can make the assumption there. On a whole, clearly was not good enough to win to most nights."
Kampfer gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead when he scored from the high slot off pass from Taylor Hall off the rush at 2:15 of the first period. It was the Bruins' first shot on goal.
"That wasn't the way I imagined the start would be," Luukkonen said with a laugh. "But I think we played really well today as a team. Huge thanks to the boys today. We played a really solid game."

Reinhart tied it 1-1 on the power play on a one-timer from the left circle at 15:40.
Dahlin's shot from the high slot through a crowd in front of Rask gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead at 6:54 of the second period. Casey Mittelstadt scored from the bottom of the right circle to extend it to 3-1 at 14:17.
Arttu Ruotsalainen made it 4-1 from the high slot at 1:14 of the third period, and Rask was pulled.
Reinhart beat Halak to a loose puck on the power play to push it to 5-1 at 4:30.
"Any goal support you can get for your goaltender, it helps," Granato said. "We fell behind 1-0, you know the statistics in this league when you fall behind 1-0. They're not good. So for our guys to stay on it, continue to just stay with the game plan and stay focused and work and get rewarded for it obviously made things much easier for [Luukkonen], and he did his job all the way through, I felt."
Nick Ritchie poked in a rebound from to make it 5-2 at 12:06, and Kevan Miller cut into the slot to narrow it to 5-3 at 15:25.
With an extra attacker, Hall brought the Bruins to within 5-4 at 17:12 when his shot from the right circle went in off the stick of Sabres defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen in front.
"I think we just got away from our game plan," Kampfer said. "It's tough to win hockey games when you show up for the last eight, nine minutes of the game. It's on us in the room. It's the National Hockey League, every team's good, everybody can beat everybody. We've got to show up and play games like that. That's on us in the room to make sure that when 7 o'clock rolls around, we're ready for 60 minutes."
Reinhart scored into an empty net with 42 seconds remaining for the 6-4 final.
Bruins center Patrice Bergeron was a late scratch with a lower-body injury.
"Obviously he's our No. 1 center, so we miss him in a lot of situations but we're a pretty good team, we've got depth," Cassidy said of the Boston captain. "He's a big part of every facet of our game, but there's other guys here capable. I don't think he had any effect on guys not being hard enough on pucks or playing a more determined game. That's on the individual and on me to get it out of them. We miss him, but certainly not the cause for defeat tonight."
NOTES: Luukkonen was selected by the Sabres in the second round (No. 54) of the 2017 NHL Draft. … Bruins forward David Pastrnak had his point streak end at five games. … Reinhart had his fifth multigoal game of the season, second in the NHL behind Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who has eight.