When analyzing the Tampa Bay-Montreal series, I suggested that to win the series, either team would need to win the battle of the star players, the battle of goaltenders, and the battle of supporting staff. In retrospect, all three factors were crucial in the series and Montreal clearly won two of the three, and lost the battle of the star players by a small margin. That led to a very close series – as expected – where Montreal advanced to the second round.
Using the same arguments with Buffalo seems logical but using their respective first-round data needs to account for the fact that Montreal faced a much more formidable opponent than Buffalo did. Other factors also need to be considered that are not in play for the first round but significant in the second, namely energy spent in the first round, momentum built during the first round, and experienced gained by both teams.
Goaltending
Both Jakub Dobes and Alex Lyon were excellent in their respective series. Dobes started the series vs Tampa Bay well, without being outstanding. His Saves Above Expected hovered around zero for the first four games. So he made the saves expected of him but no more. His last three games were outstanding, posting a 1.27 GAA and 0.961 Save Percentage. His Saves Above Expected shot up to 4.4. His Expected Goals Against was 19.42 during the seven-game series and he only allowed 15. The Habs’ 3-2 win in Game 5 where Dobes stopped 38 of the 40 shots received was decisive. Without Dobes, this series would have been lost by Game 6.
Goaltending for Buffalo was much more problematic. Their starter, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, was awful in the first two games with a -2.5 Saves Above Expected and a 0.825 Save Percentage. Luckily for the Sabres, they were able to come back late in the first game and win the game, but lost the second 4-2 while giving up only 20 shots. Luukkonen was replaced by Lyon early in the third but it was too little too late. Lindy Ruff stuck with Lyon for the rest of the series and the Sabres never looked back. Although the Bruins were able to squeeze out an overtime win in Game 5 to extend the series, the Sabres were never in any significant difficulty during the remainder of the series. Lyon was excellent over the last four games earning a 4.6 Saves Above Expected and a 0.955 Save Percentage.
Just looking at numbers, one would conclude that this is a draw. The issue here is that both Luukkonen and Lyon have had expiry dates on their good performances most of the year. Meanwhile, Dobes has been excellent to outstanding for the second half of the season when he took over the number one spot. Based on Luukkonen’s performance, Buffalo does not have a plan B. This could keep the forward group on edge if Montreal’s high-octane offence starts producing results and shakes Lyon’s confidence. Dobes has faced one of the league’s best offensive group, limiting them to mere crumbs.
Core Players
Using playoff statistics for this section is not quite reliable as it is highly dependent on the opposition and their ability to shut down the top players. In the current case, it is even less reliable as Tampa Bay has one of the top shutdown lines in the league and Boston was relying on a structure that limits rush chances across the lineup.
In the regular season, Buffalo was able to obtain offence in waves. Although their top point-getter (Tage Thompson) only had 81 points including 40 goals, they did have 10 players with +40 points compared to six for Montreal. Apart from Thompson, Buffalo’s top three point-getters were Rasmus Dahlin (74) and Alex Tuch (66). Behind them were three players with 50+ points and four players with 40+ points. Three of their top 10 were defencemen.
Montreal’s offence is much more concentrated, with four players above 70 points including Suzuki at 101 and Caufield at 88, both higher than Buffalo’s points leader. Montreal had two defencemen above 40 points namely Hutson with 78 and Noah Dobson with 47.
Ironically, it was the top players in Buffalo that did most of the production in the first round versus Boston, while in Montreal, most of the production came from the supporting staff. Tuch and Thompson scored six of the team’s 20 goals (30%) while Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach scored five of Montreal’s 16 goals (31%).
The risk for Montreal will be putting too much emphasis on Buffalo’s top players, giving more room to their stronger bottom two lines. The risk for Buffalo is the opposite, putting too much emphasis on Montreal’s supporting staff which has been very good versus Tampa Bay and giving room to the top line which was very successful versus Buffalo during the regular season.
Wild Cards
As mentioned, the Habs’ supporting staff was one of the main reasons they were able to move past Tampa Bay. The Zachary Bolduc-Kirby Dach-Alexandre Texier line was excellent, scoring five of the 16 goals, all of which were 5-on-5. In addition, Jake Evans, Phillip Danault, and Josh Anderson were monumental in defensive roles. The only rare underperformances came from Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov, although the latter had his fair share of chances, ranking third on the team in Expected Goals per 60 minutes.
For Buffalo, Peyton Krebs, Noah Ostlund, and Zach Benson were difficult to deal with for Boston. They produced five of the 20 goals and were all in the top 10 in On Ice Expected Goal Percentage, including Ostlund who is second in his team with 77%.
Both teams also have a player who can be very annoying for the other team and get in their heads in different ways. For Montreal, not only can Anderson produce on the scoresheet, his forecheck and speed will cause wear and tear for Buffalo’s defence. For Buffalo, Benson can also score but will get into the Habs defence by putting intense pressure on them and toeing the line of legality in his approach.
Among other factors that could play a role in this series are faceoffs. Montreal won 56.6% of their faceoffs (57.3% in the D-Zone) against Tampa Bay while Buffalo finished dead last after the first round with 43.8% of faceoffs won, including 42.6% on high-leverage draws. This killed Buffalo on the power play with only 34.5% of faceoffs won.
This series will involve two teams with very little playoff experience. So far though, Montreal has been challenged by a much better team and hence has given them a significant amount of confidence. For Buffalo, being the overwhelming favourite against Boston, they will be facing much stronger adversity than they have so far. It will be interesting to see how they respond to that. Montreal, being a strong road team, can take advantage of the first game before the Sabres adjust to their speed and take the lead in the series. Regardless, this will undoubtedly be a long series that could go either way.