At The Final Horn: Bruins 4 - Sabres 6

Sam Reinhart recorded a hat trick to hit the 20-goal plateau and help lift the Buffalo Sabres to a 6-4 victory over the Boston Bruins on Friday at KeyBank Center.
Rasmus Dahlin added a goal and an assist while Casey Mittelstadt and Arttu Ruotsalainen also scored.
Rookie goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen overcame a furious Boston rally in the final eight minutes of the game to earn the win in his NHL debut. He made 36 saves.
Luukkonen became the sixth goaltender in franchise history to win his first career start with the Sabres and the first since Mika Noronen did so on October 5, 2000, a 4-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.
Steven Kampfer, Nick Ritchie, Kevan Miller and Taylor Hall scored for Boston.
Tuukka Rask started in goal for Boston and made 24 saves on 28 shots before being pulled after Buffalo's fourth goal. Jaroslav Halak stopped four shots in relief.

What happened

The Bruins opened the scoring on their first shot of the game at the 2:15 mark of the first period when Kampfer scored.
Buffalo tied it up on the power play with 4:20 left in the first period on Reinhart's 18th goal of the season. He one-timed a pass from Dahlin to beat Rask short side.
The Sabres took the lead 6:54 into the second period when Dahlin stepped into a wrist shot through traffic.
With 5:43 remaining in the middle period, Mittelstadt rifled in a pass from Tage Thompson to make it 3-1.
Ruotsalainen scored from the slot and chased Rask from the net when he scored 1:44 into the third period. Ruotsalainen has goals in back-to-back games.
Reinhart added his second of the night 5:30 into the third, crashing the net to put Buffalo ahead 5-1 while Buffalo was on the man advantage.
Ritchie made it a three-goal game when he got one in during a net-front scrum with 7:54 left in regulation. Miller cut the lead to two when he cut in, while entangled with Rasmus Ristolainen, he shot the puck, it deflected off Ristolainen's stick and in past Luukkonen.
With 2:48 remaining the puck deflected in off Ristolainen to make it 5-4. Hall was credited with the goal.
With 41.9 seconds left, Reinhart completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal for his 20th goal of the season.

Roll the highlight film

Here are all three of Reinhart's goals:

Worth mentioning

-Prior to the opening faceoff, the team honored the 2020-21 Fan of the Year, the late Teddy Steeg. Steeg's family and friends were in attendance, sitting alongside the 64 cardboard cutouts they had purchased in his memory in Section 206:

Reinhart had his stick and Ristolainen had a game puck sent up to Steeg's parents after the game.
-Reinhart's hat trick was the fourth of his career and first since February 23, 2019 against Washington.

It marked the first Sabres hat trick since Jack Eichel scored four goals at home against Ottawa on Nov. 16, 2019.
-Rookie defenseman Mattias Samuelsson collected his first NHL point with the secondary assist on Mittelstadt's goal. He then wound up with his first-career multi-point game with an assist on Ruotsalainen's marker.
-Dahlin has recorded 10 points (3+7) in his last 12 games dating back to April 3.
-During the pregame show, Rob Ray had a little fun, doing his best Rick Jeanneret impression:

Coming up

Buffalo will embark on a four-game road trip that will begin on Sunday against the New York Rangers. Faceoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. on MSG and WGR 550. Pregame coverage on MSG will begin at 5:30.