The last time we saw Buffalo Sabres goalie Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen, he was stewing on the bench at KeyBank Center during the third period of Game 2 against the Boston Bruins, having been pulled after allowing four goals.
And for the next seven Stanley Cup playoff games – the last four against the Bruins and the first three of the second-round series against the Montreal Canadiens – Luukkonen was still glued to the bench watching Alex Lyon own the Buffalo crease.
However, even though coach Lindy Ruff said following the Sabres’ 6-2 blowout loss in Game 3 Sunday that Lyon played very well despite allowing five goals, he still felt the team needed a spark, so he turned back to Luukkonen for Game 4 Tuesday night at Bell Centre, and what a decision that turned out to be.
UPL was outstanding as he blanked Montreal over the final two periods, stopping all 22 shots he faced, and Zach Benson’s power-play goal at 4:41 of the third turned out to be the winner as the Sabres held on for a thrilling 3-2 victory which sends the series back to Buffalo Thursday night tied at two games apiece.
“I thought tonight we tightened things up,” Ruff told reporters. “We finally got to the place where we need to be. It looked like our team again, from the way we started the game to the way we finished the game.”
Here are my observations:
Tage Thompson scored a fluky goal
Buffalo’s leading goal scorer has not been at his best in the postseason, but here’s the thing about Thompson: He’s a star, and even when he’s not humming he still has enough juice to score four goals and seven assists in the first 10 games of the postseason.
Of course, talent had nothing to do with the goal he scored seven minutes into the second period which tied the game at 2-2. The Sabres were one minute into a four-minute power play and could not get anything going on their entries, so rather than try to carry the puck into the zone, Thompson took the usual drop pass from Rasmus Dahlin and fired the puck into the left corner.
The idea was for the Sabres to hunt it down and get set up, but they never got the chance because the puck took a crazy bounce off the boards and went right on the net and Montreal goalie Jakub Dobes couldn’t believe his eyes when it caught the back of his right leg and caromed into the net.
“That felt like the hockey gods just giving us one back,” Mattias Samuelsson said. “We’ll take it anyway we can. So I was pretty fired up.”
It was reminiscent of the goal UPL allowed in that last game he played against Boston when Morgan Geekie lobbed one at the net from center ice and it took a goofy bounce and got past him.
“It’s a fine line, right?” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “They got a goal off the door there. Is that the difference?”
Sometimes you gotta be a little lucky, and in hockey, that’s certainly true because it seems like half the goals in this sport are quirky as they inadvertently go off sticks and skates and bodies on their way to the mesh.
Sabres’ special teams were outstanding
Say what you want about the officiating, and yes, it was definitely questionable at times and often to the detriment of the Sabres, but it must also be said that Buffalo took a number of really dumb and deserved penalties, too. Sixteen minutes worth, in fact.
That should have been a recipe for disaster against this dynamic Montreal power play, but the Sabres did a great job on their kills. The Canadiens scored just once on seven man-advantage opportunities and they hardly even threatened during a critical four-minute power play that bridged the second and third periods.
It’s vital that your goalie be your best penalty killer, and UPL certainly was that. The Canadiens do a great job maintaining possession in the zone with their faceoff skill and then their puck movement, but he stood tall and the only goal they scored came late in the first period when Cole Caufield grabbed a stray puck off a blocked shot and shoved one through UPL’s legs with just 13 seconds left in the period for a 2-1 lead.
The Sabres took four penalties in the first period and three more in the second, and that’s an area they have to clean up because it feels like they dodged a few bullets in this game. Besides UPL, the other key factor on the kill was that the Sabres blocked 27 shots in the game, many of those while shorthanded, led by six from Samuelsson, five by Connor Timmins and four by Dahlin.
“The desperation to keep the puck from getting to our goaltender, I thought, was excellent,” Ruff said. “That last 10 minutes, maybe we gave up one good chance.”
On the other side of special teams, the Sabres scored two power-play goals in a game for the first time since December and after going 1-for-24 against the Bruins they are now an impressive 5-for-16 against the Canadiens.
Thompson’s goal was lucky, plain and simple, but the winning goal by Benson, celebrating his 21st birthday, was not. The Sabres won a long battle in the left corner to get possession and eventually Thompson found some space above the left circle. He surveyed but couldn’t shoot so he passed down low to Josh Doan who quickly found Benson in front and with three Canadiens surrounding him he was able to kick the puck onto his backhand and lift it over Dobes’ glove.
When Benson got back to the locker room, there on the top shelf of his cubicle was a can of Labatt Blue Light for the now legally eligible 21-year-old to drink.
Sabres started well, but it could have been better
The first period was chaotic, and that would be putting it mildly as it took almost 55 minutes to complete, partially because of a nearly 10-minute stoppage to decide whether Jack Quinn had given Buffalo a 2-0 lead.
Samuelsson put the Sabres up 1-0 at 6:32 on a pretty passing play as Doan passed left to Josh Norris who quickly zipped a pass through the slot to Samuelsson charging down the right side and he had a yawning cage to fire at as Dobes was out of position.
About 90 seconds later, Quinn, goalless and snakebit in these playoffs, backhanded a rebound right into Dobes’ glove which then went completely across the goal line, and that was confirmed on instant replay. Goal. However, the Canadiens challenged by claiming goalie interference, and after another lengthy review, the officials waved off the goal saying Konsta Helenius had hindered Dobes on the play.
“Which I totally disagree with, just for the fact that Dobeš is always swinging his stick and he initiated the contact with Helenius with his stick coming across the crease,” Ruff said. “And I thought Helenius did a great job of trying to avoid the goaltender; their guy ends up hitting the goaltender. I really thought that that was going our way. And I know that’s my opinion … just a tough review on us.”
It really was an absurd reversal at a time when Buffalo was controlling play and the long delay seemed to stem the early momentum the Sabres had built. Sure enough, Montreal was able to regroup and tied the game two minutes later thanks to the type of defensive breakdown that haunted the Sabres in Game 3.
Samulesson and Bo Byram somehow lost track of Jake Evans and he was all alone in front but UPL robbed him blind. But Evans corralled the loose puck and then Byram made another huge error as he allowed Alex Newhook to sneak past him and he was by himself to re-direct Evans’ pass from the same spot where Evans had just missed.
Konsta Helenius looked fantastic
Switching goalies wasn’t the only lineup change Ruff made, but while playing UPL wasn’t surprising, his other two moves were as he inserted Helenius and Luke Schenn.
Helenius was the Sabres’ first-round draft pick (No. 14 overall) in 2024 who played nine regular-season games for the Sabres and at times looked a bit overmatched, though he did score one goal and three assists.
He went back to Rochester after playing against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Feb. 5 and he became the Amerks’ No. 1 offensive player once the Sabres traded center and former first-round pick Isak Rosen and defenseman Jacob Bryson to Winnipeg at the deadline for defensemen Schenn and Logan Stanley. Helenius led the Amerks with 63 points (21 goals, 42 assists) and he had two goals and an assist in Rochester’s three-game playoff series loss to Toronto.
He was inserted on to a line with Quinn and Jason Zucker while slumping Ryan McLeod was bumped to the fourth line with Jordan Greenway and Beck Malenstyn because Sam Carrick, in his first game back from injury Sunday, is out again after taking a sucker punch at the end of Game 3 which opened the roster spot for Helenius.
The 20-year-old looked unfazed by the playoff pressure and the raucous Montreal crowd. He nearly scored on a play where Dobes made perhaps the best save of the game, and in the third period he rang a shot off the post. He played 12:53, 17 shifts in all including one in crunch time during the final three minutes which showed Ruff had faith in him, and he finished with three shots, a blocked shot and a hit. No doubt, he’s playing Thursday night.
“It’s a great feeling that the coach trusts me,” Helenius said. “I played those situations in the AHL but not in the NHL so it was great to play out some big minutes. It means a lot.”
Schenn played in place of Stanley and the reason that was surprising is because Schenn is even slower than Stanley, and Stanley’s lack of speed was a big problem in the first three games. However, Schenn played just 7:04 as Ruff rotated his top five defensemen all night.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: 4 things that stood out in Sabres series‑swinging win over Canadiens
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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