Matthew Fairburn

I think it will.

I think this is, you know, one of the things about the Sabres being out of the playoffs for so long is that so many guys on the team

haven't experienced the playoffs.

You know, they've got a handful of guys here and there, Bo Byram, Alex Tuck has gone deep into the playoffs before, but they have a lot of important players that have never experienced this.

And I thought Alex Lyons said something interesting today when he, he said Sunday is the game one was almost harder to move on from than game two, you know, game two, you're ready to park it.

You're ready to push that aside.

And,

and move forward.

But game one, the emotion and the anticipation of the first playoff game in Buffalo in 15 years, the way it went, the way the building was, that can be difficult to decompress from and move on from.

Lindy Ruff even mentioned a small thing like Sunday night, the guys probably didn't sleep very well, right?

And so the recovery and everything about your routine kind of gets disrupted a bit.

But I think as far as game two goes,

they're going to handle that the right way it's a new experience for them all of this is new for a lot of these guys and collectively as a team but lindy ruff has been around for a lot of playoff games and a lot of deep runs from his team so i think he will have the right you know approach to to keep them level-headed but uh we'll find out i guess tomorrow night in boston

caused some people around the league or maybe even just those of us in media on the outside to take a closer look at what he did right because the roster is largely the one he built that went on this run for four straight months I think there is definitely you know Kevin Adams has I would say an eye for talent in the draft I think he has a pretty good understanding of how to

develop young players, although he made some mistakes there as well.

I think ultimately what it comes down to for me is that obviously he made some good moves here that helped get this team, you know, to where it is right now.

Like, you know, he built this team, but the question I will have about him going forward is, you know, can he figure out the leadership component of the job and, and,

you know, the, the public facing portion of the job, the, the speaking.

And, you know, I think there, they had lost some faith in this building and him being the one to steer them out of this.

And that sort of bled through into a lot of what was happening early in the season.