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Opportunities to clinch a playoff series at home, in front of a full house of frenzied fans, do not come along very often. On Saturday, the Canadiens had the opportunity to take a second-round win over the Sabres in a sixth game. After a convincing Game 5 victory, the Habs faithful certainly expected a win in the game and the series.

However, that’s not quite how things worked out. After claiming a 3-1 lead in the first period, thanks to some suspect goaltending by Alex Lyon, things fell apart, and the bleu blanc et rouge were badly overplayed in nearly the entire game, en route to an 8-3 loss. The series is not over, but the Sabres have clearly indicated that they are not willing to roll over and play dead.

Starting Lines

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Texier – Danault – Anderson
Newhook – Evans – Demidov
Bolduc – Veleno – Dach

Matheson – Carrier
Hutson – Dobson
Guhle – Xhekaj

Dobes
Fowler

Ten Thoughts

1) The line-matching in this series has been nothing like what Jon Cooper was doing in the first round, getting the Anthony Cirelli line on the ice whenever the Habs’ top line was on. However, Martin St-Louis has had the Phillip Danault line on the ice for almost half of Buffalo’s top line (with Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch), and with outstanding results: 75% xGF and 100% GF in the series. I expect to see the Danault line stay against the Sabres’ (scrambled) top line, now with Thompson, Zach Benson, and Josh Norris). St-Louis had the last line change to make that happen in this one but will need to work to do so on Monday.

2) Jakub Dobes recovered from his early Game 5 stumbles quickly. and was rock-solid in the second and third periods to give the Habs the series lead on Thursday. His mental strength has been exemplary in these playoffs, but it didn’t help keep the Sabres from scoring the early goal, just 32 seconds into the game. Juraj Slafkovsky stumbled against the boards on a rush, losing the puck, and then again failed to clear it once the Sabres had entered the Montreal zone. That enabled Rasmus Dahlin to pass the puck across the net directly in front of Dobes–and have that pass go into the net off Alexandre Carrier’s stick.

3) Arber Xhekaj was the one to respond to it this time, taking a Jake Evans pass and sending a rolling snapshot from the top of the right circle onto Alex Lyon’s shoulder and on to the back of the net to tie the game. Peyton Krebs, on the ice for that goal, felt personally offended by it, and pulled off Xhekaj’s helmet, looking for a full-fledged tangle. As Xhekaj was not interested, it was only Krebs who got sent off, and Montreal’s power play got to work. It was Ivan Demidov scoring his second of the playoffs on a one-timer from a Lane Hutson pass.

4) Danault, one of the Habs’ key penalty-killers, was called for hooking Norris at 8:30, predicating a more-than-usually challenging penalty kill for the Canadiens. Dahlin had a golden chance at a power-play goal about a minute later, but Dobes made a stonking save on that play. Both were penalized on the ensuing to-and-fro, but the power play stayed at five-on-four. And just 20 seconds later, Mike Matheson sent Jake Evans and Josh Anderson on a two-on-one shorthanded break. Bowen Byram took away the pass opportunity, but Evans lifted the puck between Lyon’s pad and arm to make it 3-1. And that was the end of the day for Lyon.

5) The scoreboard looked great–as long as one didn’t look at the shot totals–but that dreaded two-goal lead didn’t last long. Matheson lost control of his stick in front of the Montreal goal, hitting Norris in the face and, worse yet, drawing blood. A double minor, then, with the team’s top defender sitting in the box. The Habs were able to kill off the first half of the double, but Norris sent a pass across the front of the net. Anderson was just unable to cut off that pass, and, instead, Jason Zucker was there, whacking it into the open side of the net to reduce the deficit to one.

6) The Canadiens were outshot (11-5) and badly out-chanced (1.6-0.4 xGF), and could only thank the porous goaltending of Lyon for their 3-2 lead. To secure a win, the Habs really needed to turn the tide in the second period, but seven minutes in, the numbers were even more grim (10-3 shots and 1.3-0.3 xGF). Worse yet, with that early pressure, the Sabres were able to tie the game back up, as Benson took a Thompson pass behind the net and then flipped the puck over Dobes’s outstretched pad.

7) The Habs had their chance when the Sabres were called for too many men on the ice, but the power play didn’t have quite the same edge as it had in its successful first-period play. And when Carrier was called for interference, the Sabres did score their second power play goal, with a Jack Quinn slap shot from the top of the circle finding its way under Dobes’s arm.

8) Then it was time for serial problems: Byram appeared to have elbowed Joe Veleno in the face at centre ice. Veleno was shaken up and headed for the bench, giving the Sabres an odd-man rush. Then Kaiden Guhle tried to take out Zucker on the boards, and failed. The end result was a Zucker-Konsta Helenius two-on-one, with only Xhekaj back. Zucker was able to make the pass, and Dobes could not move across fast enough to make the save on Helenius, who made it a 5-3 game.

9) The Habs were much more in control in the third period, and both the shots and the xGF showed an improvement. However, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was solid in relief, and none of the Canadiens were able to find a way to get the puck past the Finnish goaltender. On the other hand, Quinn scored his second of the playoffs less than 20 minutes after the first one, sending Dobes to the bench.

10) The game was already a done deal, but Thompson made the scoreboard numbers look worse with an empty-netter. After that, Xhekaj took an interference penalty for a hit on Beck Malenstyn, enabling Zach Metsa to score his first career playoff goal, getting the puck through Jacob Fowler’s five-hole. From a 3-1 lead to an 8-3 loss: that’s seven unanswered goals, certainly not what anyone should have expected from this team.

HW Habs Three Stars

First Star: Jake Evans (1g, 1a, 1 shot, +1, 16:13 TOI) did all he could in this game, but two goals (yes, one of them an assist) were nowhere near enough to win this one. Still, outstanding work, especially on the penalty kill, and he was the only one of the Canadiens centres to win more faceoffs than he lost (8-6 on the night) and had a second opportunity to score as well. The Newhook-Evans-Demidov line had a 30.9% xGF score, which looks terrible but was actually the least bad of all the Canadiens forward lines.

Second Star: Lane Hutson (0g, 1a, 1 shot, +0, 24:28 TOI) was once again one of the best players on the ice, but his offensive efforts didn’t bear much fruit. Still, he was able to avoid being scored on in five-on-five play, and created numerous scoring chances which, sadly, the forwards were unable to capitalize on.

Third Star: Ivan Demidov (1g, 0a, 5 shots, +0, 17:14 TOI) is looking closer to his normal self and was able to get the puck past Lyon in the first period. This time, the second trio could not get the openings they’ve had in the past games, though, so the power play marker was all Demidov had to show for his efforts on the night.