By winning the NHL’s Atlantic Division this season, the Buffalo Sabres earned home-ice advantage for the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Is there any chance the Sabres could petition the league to decline playing Game 7 of their second-round series Monday night at KeyBank Center, and just stay up in Montreal?
“Well, we’re in the process of seeing if we can play here on Monday,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff joked in his post-game media session.
Was he joking, though? In all honesty, that would certainly be an intriguing option if it were possible because Saturday night, facing elimination, the Sabres overcame an egregious first few minutes at the Bell Centre and roared back to score the final seven goals for a spectacular 8-3 blowout of the Canadiens.
“It shows character within the group, there’s no quit in this team,” defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said. “I felt like we played loose, we played with confidence. It was an overall ‘A’ game for us. We simplify our game when we’re on the road. We’re playing more aggressive, stuff you should be doing at home also.”
Here’s a suggestion: The Sabres should book a hotel in Rochester Sunday, then bus to KeyBank Center Monday afternoon and make it feel like a road game because they have been a vastly better team on the road in this postseason. This was their fifth win in six games against the Canadiens and Boston Bruins, the first time they’ve won five of their first six road games in a postseason since 1998. However, at home they’ve lost four of six and have looked mostly terrible in all but one, their Game 1 victory over Montreal.
What’s troubling is that similar to the Sabres, the Canadiens are 2-4 at home but they’re 5-2 on the road which makes them dangerous in Game 7. It has been a crazy series in that regard and now the Sabres have to find a way to break that pattern and win a Game 7 for just the second time in franchise history.
Here are my observations:
Lindy Ruff pushed all the right buttons
When the lineup was announced, there were likely a few eyebrows arching throughout western New York. Everyone knew Alex Lyon was going to start in goal, and chances were Ruff was going to make a change on the third defense pair, and he did as Zach Metsa replaced Luke Schenn and made his NHL postseason debut.
What wasn’t expected is Ruff going nuclear with his forward lines and changing all four combinations. The result was the Sabres’ fourth game in franchise postseason history where they scored at least eight goals, first since April 24, 2006 when they did it against the Philadelphia Flyers. And, they also became the first team in NHL history to be down by multiple goals on the road in a playoff game but end up winning by at least five goals.
The first line was comprised of Thompson, Zach Benson and Josh Norris; he had Josh Doan, Alex Tuch and Ryan McLeod together on the second line; the third group consisted of Jack Quinn, Jason Zucker and Konsta Helenius; and the fourth was Jordan Greenway, Peyton Krebs and Beck Malenstyn.
With the exception of Lyon, who will most certainly not be getting the start in Game 7 after his meltdown in the first 10 minutes, one can assume these lines and defense pairs won’t be changing Monday night.
Putting Benson with Thompson proved genius because Benson has been Buffalo’s best player and his energy, peskiness and puck possession skills gave Thompson opportunities and both players led the way with six shots on goal apiece. In fact, when Benson was on the ice at even strength, the Sabres outshot the Canadiens 11-1 and scored twice, one of those goals by him which tied the game at 3-3 one minute into the second period.
“I just think our top line had struggled,” Ruff said. “They had been good for such a long time. We had a few times we switched back and forth. But really felt it was just time to make a change.”
Throughout the playoffs the Benson-Doan-Norris line had far and away been Buffalo’s best so breaking it up seemed a little risky, but you can’t argue with the results. As for the Quinn-Zucker-Helenius threesome, they combined for four goals and two assists, including three of the biggest goals of the game.
The first came from Zucker who beat Montreal goalie Jakub Dobes from in tight off a nice pass from Norris on a power play at 13:56 of the first which stemmed the Canadiens’ tidal wave and cut Buffalo’s deficit to 3-2. After Benson tied it in the second, Quinn scored his first career playoff goal with a laser from the top of the right circle, also on a power play at 10:54, to put the Sabres ahead for good at 4-3.
And then Helenius took a Zucker feed off a 2-on-1 rush and ripped a wrist shot past Dobes to provide some breathing room heading into the second intermission.
You had to figure the Canadiens were going to come out buzzing in the third, but the Sabres completely took their will away and held them to one shot on goal in the first nine minutes before Quinn put the game out of reach when he scored Buffalo’s third power-play goal at 9:58. For Quinn, this was such a huge night because he had been so snakebit with no goals through the first 11 games.
As for Metsa, he played 12:19 and was perfectly fine in his own end, plus he scored the Sabres’ final goal and fourth with the man advantage on a shot from the point with 2:11 remaining.
The stars shined bright for the Sabres
This was obviously a full roster stellar performance, but it was fueled by Dahlin and Thompson who finally played the way superstars are supposed to play in the playoffs.
Dahlin opened the scoring just 32 seconds into the game, later added four assists, and he was not on the ice for any of Montreal’s three goals. His five points tied the Sabres’ single-game playoff record previously shared by John Tucker and Derek Roy.
And Thompson scored an empty net goal, added three assists, was much more involved with those six shots on goal, and he didn’t take any dumb penalties the way he did in the previous two games.
What about the other big gun, Alex Tuch? Well, he remained scoreless for the series and his plus-minus dipped to what is now a team-worst minus-9, but he played much better in this game as he managed four shots and was robbed twice by Dobes, once on a breakaway.
Led by their best players, the Sabres dominated in every phase. They scored on four of their six power plays and killed two of Montreal’s three; they won 34 of 56 faceoffs (60.7%); they outshot the Canadiens 36-22 including 17-10 in the game-deciding second period; and they blocked 18 shots.
Sabres overcame a gruesome start
For the fifth time in the series the Sabres scored first, and all of those came within the first seven minutes, three inside the first minutes. Fast starts have been their calling card, but maintaining those fast starts have been the problem.
Saturday, it was Dahlin dancing around Juraj Slafkovsky in the left circle, charging to the net and lifting a backhander past Dobes on Buffalo’s first shot to get the Sabres rolling in a do-or-die game.
But just like the other games where they scored first, the Sabres allowed Montreal to score the next one, this time Buffalo’s lead lasting all of 68 seconds before Arber Xhekaj, straight off a faceoff win by Jake Evans, beat Lyon from well out.
That goal began one of the worst goaltending performances in Sabres postseason history because the next two shots Montreal got on net also found their way into the mesh, Ivan Demidov at 8:12 and Evans at 10:14 for a 3-1 lead. Four shots, three goals allowed, and at that point Ruff had no choice but to yank Lyon and insert Ukka-Pekka-Luukkonen.
With the Bell Centre in an ear-splitting uproar, the sight of UPL skating into the crease surely did not inspire much confidence given how poorly he had played during Game 5 before getting pulled. In fact, it felt like Buffalo was about to get run out of the building and straight into the offseason. Instead, UPL blanked the Canadiens the rest of the way, stopping 18 shots.
“I feel like at that point when you get put in it doesn’t really matter how many shots you see,” Luukkonen said. “You just try to find a way to get comfortable in the net, be ready for the next shot. I feel like as a goalie, you kind of have to think that you’re almost playing with house money at that point. You kind of want to just do your best to help your team win.”
He did exactly that, his newly deployed teammates did their collective job, and here we go: Game 7, downtown Buffalo, Monday night, winner goes on to face Carolina in the Eastern Conference finals.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Thompson said. “A new experience for lots of guys, something you dream of growing up. If you asked every guy in September about Game 7 of the second round, we all would have signed up for it. We’re in a great spot. Now it’s just one game. That’s all that matters.”
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: 3 things that stood out in the Sabres stunning seven-goal comeback win
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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