Monday night featured only the second Game Seven in the 2026 NHL playoffs, and it was the second time the featured game included the Habs. The contest took place at KeyBank Center in Buffalo as both the Canadiens and Sabres tried to advance to face the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night.
To do so, Oliver Kapanen was inserted into the lineup in favour of Joe Veleno and that was the only change after an atrocious effort in game six. Montreal had a strong start to the game, with the Sabres controlling the second and third period as the Habs’ defenders were far too cautious and gave up their blue line far too easily. The Canadiens were lucky to get the game to overtime where they got the winner from Alex Newhook for a 3-2 as they will move on to face the Caroline Hurricanes on Thursday night!
Habs Lineup
Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook – Jake Evans — Ivan Demidov
Alexandre Texier – Phillip Danault – Josh Anderson
Zach Bolduc – Oliver Kapanen – Kirby Dach
Mike Matheson – Alexandre Carrier
Lane Hutson — Noah Dobson
Kaiden Guhle – Arber Xhekaj
Jakub Dobes
10 Thoughts
1) As has been the norm in this series, the game’s opening goal came four and a half minutes into the game. What was different was the team scoring, as it was the Habs. They earned the goal when Anderson came in on a hard forecheck and backed off Bowen Byram. He then one-handed a pass behind the net to Texier, who found Guhle at the top of the circle. Guhle went to the net with the puck and while Danault missed it with his stick, the puck hit his skate and went into the net behind Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for an early Habs.
2) The Canadiens led 8-3 in shots after ten minutes, but the Sabres had their first solid push to start the second half of the period. Dobes looked nervous early, giving some bad rebounds, but he stood tall against the first Buffalo push which was a good sign. Montreal pushed back immediately as Luukkonen made two spectacular saves on Caufield on a sequence that ended with Zach Benson clearing the puck out of the rink for a delay-of-game penalty. The first power play unit got plenty of zone time, but the second goal of the period came as they were in the middle of changing, as Suzuki found Bolduc, who made no mistake on a laser of a shot.
3) The final five minutes started with a breakaway for Texier as he picked off a Sabre defender at his defensive zone. Luukkonen made another stellar save to keep it at 2-0. Buffalo then got a 2-on-1 which was thwarted by Carrier. An excellent play by Carrier who was, in my opinion, the worst Hab in Game 6, along with Slafkovsky. The Habs mostly defended for the rest of the period which was hopefully not a sign of things to come as the Sabres battled back to end the period only trailing 11-9 in shots, while remaining behind 2-0 on the scoreboard.
4) Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the Sabres who came out strong to start the second period as they hemmed the Canadiens in their zone for the first few shifts of the period. Josh Norris drew a call for a high-stick, but review showed that there was no high-stick, so play remained at five-on-five. At 11:30, Anderson got free on a breakaway but fell on his own awkwardly before getting a good shot off.
5) The second half of the game started with some back and forth with the Suzuki line on the ice. The Sabres were controlling play, but the visitors were playing excellent defensively and keeping Buffalo to the outside, taking advantage of the openings created by their opposition being a little overaggressive in trying to get back in the game. Buffalo took advantage of a bad Matheson giveaway in his defensive zone, but Dobes saved the day with a brilliant glove save, easily his best save of the night up to that point.
6) The Habs stopped winning all puck races and one could see the momentum swinging far too dramatically for the home side. Finally, with 6:38 to play, Hutson lost his stick and the line still failed to get the puck out twice. Finally, Mattias Samuelsson got the puck at the point with Dobes not having a clue where the puck was. Samuelsson shot the puck off Jordan Greenway and off Dobes’ shoulder to make it 2-1 and send the crowd into a frenzy. The good news that came out of the Buffalo goal was that it appeared to wake up the Habs. They pushed back and finally spent some time in the Sabres’ zone, but Buffalo pushed right back and Montreal was lucky to get out of the period up 2-1 in goals as the Sabres had passed the Habs in shots 21-18.
7) 90 seconds into the third period, the Sabres got their first man advantage of the game when Danault hit Samuelsson with an errant high stick in the offensive zone. The Habs did an excellent job in killing this penalty, but it settled Montreal right back into a defensive posture which was not ideal. A strong shift by Suzuki, Demidov, and Newhook reverses that situation as Matheson rang a shot off the post. Buffalo came right back and threatened before Jason Zucker absolutely bowled over Dobes after a play. How that was not called a penalty is beyond me. On the very next shift, Dach tried to help Bolduc with his coverage, which left Rasmus Dahlin wide open. Dahlin made no mistake to tie the game with 13 minutes to play.
8) There was an absolutely ridiculous play at the midway mark as Dobes had the puck, but the Sabres once again were allowed to poke at him after the play. This time, the puck got loose and the Sabres complained that the whistle went early, but it didn’t. The play should never have even gotten to that point. By not wanting to affect the outcome, that’s precisely what the officials were doing. Dangerous game to play.
9) Buffalo continued to control the pace of play throughout the rest of the period, but the Habs were careful in not giving up much in terms of scoring chances. In fact, I would argue that they were too cautious. The defence, in particular was way too fast in backing up, giving the Sabres more offensive zone time than they should have received. Of course, this would have also been helped had the forwards actually cleared the zone when given the chance to do so. This was a problem all series and it continued in this segment. Perhaps the best chance of the entire last 10 minutes came on one of those easy clears out of the defensive zone as Anderson was then able to give chase, out-skate Owen Power, and earn a partial break that forced an excellent Luukkonen save. In the end, shots were 11-4 for the Sabres in the third period for a 34-22 total, but the score was tied at two and the game required overtime.
10) The teams exchanged glorious chances throughout an extended overtime as Anderson hit a post and Tage Thompson missed a chance with Dobes swimming around. With Buffalo accentuating the pressure as the period moved along, it was a strong play in the defensive zone and on the breakout by Carrier that sent Newhook into the Buffalo zone with the puck. Evans clearly told Newhook to shoot as he crashed the net. Newhook took the shot, and it got by Luukkonen for the dramatic series win.
HabsWorld Habs 3 Stars
1st Star – Nick Suzuki
That pass to Bolduc in the first was a thing of beauty. He played a strong, responsible game while still being offensively present and dangerous. He double-shifted for most of the second half of the game as Kapanen joined Xhekaj on the bench. A really gutsy performance by the captain who played more than even most defenders in the game.
Stats: 1 assist, even, 1 shot, 2 hits, 29:30 T.O.I.
2nd Star – Alex Newhook
Newhook got the series winner against the Lightning and was an important contributor early in the series against the Sabres. He had gone a bit more silent in recent games, though his linemate in Demidov had become the more dangerous forward. Demidov missed two good chances in overtime before Evans clearly told Newhook to shoot as Newhook got his second consecutive series winner. He’ll continue to be an important piece of the puzzle of the Habs against the Hurricanes.
Stats: 1 goal, +1, 2 shots, 3 hits, 19:52 T.O.I.
3rd Star – Zach Bolduc
Bolduc has been excellent all series; it was a crazy good shot for his power play goal and something we could afford to see more of. He got caught on the tying goal, but he’s been better defensively than most of his linemates throughout the playoffs, so here’s hoping he can ride his playoff performance to a more even next season.
Stats: 1 goal, -1, 2 shots, 3 hits, 9:11 T.O.I.