At The Final Horn | 1st-period letdown puts Sabres down against Bruins

The Buffalo Sabres had an early lead Wednesday night, but it quickly slipped away in a 5-1 loss to the Boston Bruins at KeyBank Center.
Kyle Okposo scored the first goal of the game, but the Bruins scored four goals in the final 6:31 of the first period to help them cruise to victory.
Aaron Dell made 18 saves on 22 shots in the first period before being relieved by Dustin Tokarski, who stopped 24 of 25 shots.
Patrice Bergeron, Charlie Coyle, David Pastrnak, Mike Reilly and Taylor Hall scored for Boston. Jeremy Swayman turned aside 24 shots.
Buffalo finished the game on the power play and on the penalty kill. The Sabres have now lost four in a row.

How it happened

Buffalo opened the scoring with 9:04 remaining in the first period.
Following a Bruins 2-on-1 rush that was shut down, Okposo skated back up the ice and beat Swayman short side through a high screen.

The Bruins responded with four goals to close out the period.

First, Bergeron capitalized on a scramble in front with 6:31 left and then Coyle beat Dell up top from the right faceoff dot with 5:40 to go in the first to make it 2-1 in favor of Boston.
Pastrnak scored on the power play with 3:01 remaining. Reilly scored with 1:00 left to put Boston up 4-1.
Boston ended up outshooting Buffalo 22-8 after 20 minutes.
Tokarski started the second period for Buffalo.
The Sabres played with some energy to start the middle frame and ended up having a 14-7 edge in shots.
John Hayden was denied on a penalty shot at the 9:22 mark of the second period.
Hall scored during a major penalty to Zemgus Girgensons with 4:34 left in regulation to close out the scoring.
The Sabres were outshot 18-3 in the third period.

Roll the highlight film

Rick Jeanneret has the call on Okposo's goal:

Coming up

The Sabres' three-game homestand ends (but the stretch of six games in nine days continues) Friday night when the Montreal Canadiens come to town.
It's a 7 p.m. faceoff on MSG and WGR 550 with pregame coverage on MSG starting at 6:30.
Tickets are on sale now.