BUFFALO, N.Y. -- "Let's Go Buffalo" chants echoed around the arena following the conclusion of Game 7 as the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens shook hands following their Eastern Conference semifinal series.
The cheers for the Sabres were not for the reasons that the fans nor the team had hoped, coming at the end of a 3-2 overtime loss.
Instead, they were to acknowledge a historic year that saw the end of a 14-season playoff drought and a team that brought excitement and playoff fever back to a hockey-loving city. A Buffalo team that for the first time since 2007 won a playoff series -- defeating the Boston Bruins in Round 1 -- and pushed the Canadiens to the very brink.
This Buffalo team, however, wanted more. And the disappointment was overflowing postgame.
"We were feeling good in here [going into overtime]. Tons of confidence in this room," star forward Tage Thompson said. "I think everyone in here felt like this was going to end different and probably felt like we deserved a little better outcome, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Yeah, we just got to unfortunately take that taste with us into the summer and do something about it."
Captain Rasmus Dahlin put the emotions pretty simply, saying, "I don't know. F------ sucks." He later added, "yeah, it's one shot that decides the whole season. It sucks."
The loss came despite the Sabres climbing back from a multi-goal deficit for a second straight game, and, after an up-and-down situation, goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen saved 22 of 25 shots. Buffalo also outshot Montreal, 39-25, despite falling down 2-0.
The Sabres had a variety of goal-scoring opportunities in the second and third periods. Just more than halfway through the third period, a no-goal was called on what have been a score by Beck Malenstyn, but an early whistle took it off the board.
"I thought it was a little bit of a quick whistle," Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. "Because you can always go back and look at those. But didn't really get an explanation on it."
Buffalo never led against Montreal, but it did receive goals from Jordan Greenway in the second period, and Dahlin -- who had 14 points this postseason, the third-most by a defenseman in Sabres history -- in the third. Dahlin was also involved in a Buffalo turnover with Thompson that came just before Montreal's game-winning goal by Alex Newhook.
"S--- play," Dahlin said. "I don't even remember. That was on me. I can't do that."
From Luukkonen's perspective, he said the puck on the game-winner did dip down on him on the final goal, and "they got a screen going. I was in a high stance, it kind of dipped on me and just -- as I said, it just kind of boils down to that moment, and it sucks."
The Sabres are now 1-7 in Game 7s all-time, the second-worst winning percentage in league history. Only the Ottawa Senators are worst at 0-6. Buffalo has also lost six of the last seven overtime playoff games, with their only win in Game 6 of the 2011 Eastern Conference quarterfinals vs. the Philadelphia Flyers.
Both Thompson and Luukkonen emphasized that the loss stung more given everything they had put into the season, which included winning the Atlantic Division, and the players on this year's team.
"I don't think you get to this spot, especially the way we started this season, without a group of brothers that want to go to war for each other," Thompson said. "A lot of hard work that went into this season by everyone that people don't get to see. A lot of adversity, a lot of challenges, the physical and mental grind that we went through ... I felt like we should've got rewarded for a little bit more, but like I said, sometimes that's the way it goes."
Ruff, in his second tenure as coach of the Sabres, said that he told his players how proud he is of them and that this loss does not define the season. And while the year ended in a way that left a bitter taste in the locker room, the cheers that echoed in downtown Buffalo in the moments after the loss were symbolic of what was accomplished.
"This is a giant step for us. A giant step for all the players to really get a feel of what it's really like," Ruff said. "To be proud of being a Buffalo Sabre, to be proud of playing here.
"When I took the job, I thought, number one, I wanted these guys to like being a Buffalo Sabre. I think they like being a Sabre and I think they made our city proud. It wasn't the result we wanted and to a man, they're all disappointed. But they gave them everything they had in the can."
