The Canadiens arrived in Buffalo for their home-away-from-home game against the Sabres, with nearly half the fans wearing the sainte flanelle rather than the Buffalo colours. With Jakub Dobes starting his third straight game in goal, it was an opportunity for Montreal to tie up the season series and to set the tone for a possible future playoff matchup.
And set the tone they did, at least for the first period and the first half of the third. They hung on for the remainder and finished the game with a 4-2 victory, thanks to Cole Caufield’s timely scoring and Jakub Dobes’s strong performance in net, to move back into the top three in the Atlantic division.
Starting Lines
Caufield – Suzuki – Dach
Slafkovsky – Kapanen – Demidov
Veleno – Evans – Bolduc
Anderson- Danault – Gallagher
Matheson – Guhle
Hutson – Dobson
Xhekaj – Carrier
Dobes
Montembeault
Ten Thoughts
1) Alexandre Texier was a late scratch for tonight’s game, with a lower-body injury as the reported issue. Martin St-Louis moved Kirby Dach to the top line, next to Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki, and re-inserted Joe Veleno into the lineup to cover Dach’s recent role on the line with Jake Evans and Zachary Bolduc.
2) The penalty box door was first opened at exactly midway through the first period, after Tage Thompson took down Danault next to the Buffalo goal. Danault had just had the best scoring chance of the early going, with a wrist shot from near the net, and Thompson was taking no chances with Danault still threatening.
3) The power play didn’t look great early, with the Sabres managing to clear the puck multiple times. However, as it reached its second minute, the Habs got the power play working, with the usual crisp passing, looking for scoring opportunities. Movement was good, and as Suzuki and Caufield passed the puck to each other, they swapped positions, and then Suzuki put a pass on the stick of Juraj Slafkovsky in front of the net, and Slafkovsky made no mistake in one-timing the puck past Alex Lyon on just the second shot of the advantage.
4) After some heavy Buffalo pressure late in the first period, the Canadiens got a break with a second Buffalo penalty, this one to Bowen Byram for tripping Suzuki. However, with a penalty split across the first two periods, the bleu blanc et rouge didn’t manage to generate much pressure on the Sabres.
5) Worse, with 10 seconds left in the power play, Lane Hutson was sent off for tripping Ryan McLeod to give the Sabres their first power play. And with 12 seconds remaining in that power play, McLeod took his own penalty after getting his stick on Kaiden Guhle’s arm.
6) The second power play unit got some more ice time in tonight’s game, and it actually looked pretty good. The much-maligned Brendan Gallagher won board battles to keep the puck in play, and both Noah Dobson and Oliver Kapanen were scoring threats. And they did shoot more than the PP1 unit …
7) One of the referees put his hand up for a delayed Montreal penalty just after the seven-minute mark, and the Sabres struck quickly on that, before the visitors could get possession of the puck, with Owen Power taking a slap shot from the top of the left faceoff circle. The puck found its way through the traffic, and Dobes was not able to spot it soon enough to make a save.
8) The Buffalo pressure continued for the majority of the period, exacerbated by high-sticking penalties first to Noah Dobson and then to Hutson. While Suzuki managed a short-handed scoring chance on the Hutson penalty, the Buffalo power play was overwhelming the Montreal penalty-killers. The pressure paid off for the Sabres just as the penalty expired, with Noah Ostlund one-timing a pass from Alex Tuch past Dobson for a 2-1 Sabres lead.
9) After yet another struggle in the second period, the Habs came out flying in the third. Hutson had an early chance, taking a backhand shot on Lyon while skating across the front of the net but Lyon got his pad on it. It didn’t take long, though, before the Habs got things clicking. Dobson made a pass across the front of the Buffalo net, and Caufield, fighting for position in front, got his stick free to redirect the puck past the surprised Lyon to tie the game back up at 4:14 of the final frame. Mr. Saturday Night followed that up with a second goal six minutes later, tapping in the puck after Kirby Dach freed the puck up in the corner, starting a tic-tac play to Suzuki and then Caufield.
10) The Sabres were not done yet, though, and they applied relentless pressure through the final ten minutes of the game. Dobes made a save after save, with more than 10 stops after the second Caufield goal. The defence played well, but without Dobes to backstop them, the Sabres would likely have tied the game back up. The Canadiens then managed to kill a late holding penalty to Kirby Dach before the Sabres were able to pull Lyon for an extra attacker–and Kapanen put the icing on the cake with an empty-netter shot from next to Dobes to finalize the score at 4-2.
HW Habs Three Stars
First Star: Cole Caufield (2g, 1a, 5 shots, +2, 15:39 TOI) continued his incredible Saturday night performances with two goals and three points on the night. The Suzuki line was at times hemmed in their own zone by the Sabres’ top line, but their offensive skills were still beyond what Thompson, Tuch, and Jack Quinn could generate. Oh, and Caufield’s three hits were as good or better than any other forward not named Brendan Gallagher.
Second Star: Jakub Dobes (38 shots, 36 saves, .947 save percentage, +3.5 GSAx) played one of his best games this year. He was solid in his last two victories against Vegas and Colorado, but this game, he was outstanding, particularly in the third period when the Sabres’ late attack had them at 3.2 xG, only to be stymied by Dobes.
Third Star: Juraj Slafkovsky (1g, 0a, 7 shots, +1, 17:28 TOI) had another strong game, and the second line, with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov, was the one with the Habs’ best five-on-five scoring chances, even though the only even-strength goal was Kapanen’s empty-net marker at the end of the game. Some commentators have suggested that Martin St-Louis should reconfigure this line as they didn’t score for a small handful of games, but those calls seem premature now.