MONTREAL — The Buffalo Sabres aren’t in Boston anymore.
That much was clear from the moment former Montreal Canadiens captain and Stanley Cup champion Kirk Muller carried the torch to the ice before puck drop of Game 3 in Montreal. The building was deafening, unlike any road environment most of the Sabres have ever played in. Defenseman Bowen Byram, who won a Stanley Cup in Colorado, said this was the loudest building he’s ever played in. A few weeks ago, the first playoff game in Buffalo in 15 years registered a 108 decibel reading at its loudest point. On Sunday, the Bell Centre hit 112.
But this was about more than just a loud building and hostile road environment. The Canadiens also smothered the Sabres for three straight periods to skate to a dominant 6-2 win and take a 2-1 series lead. Tage Thompson momentarily quieted that Bell Centre crowd with a goal 53 seconds into the game that gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead.
That moment was fleeting.
The Canadiens controlled the rest of that period and hit the first intermission tied at 1 thanks to a goal from Alex Newhook late in the period. The shot was going wide but deflected off Sabres defenseman Conor Timmins and got past Alex Lyon.
That bounce was enough to get the Canadiens rolling. They opened up a 4-1 lead with three straight goals in the second period. And when the Sabres made a push in the third period, Montreal goalie Jakus Dobeš had every answer, allowing his team to build that 6-2 lead.
“I’ll give them a lot of credit,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “I said before this started, they beat a hell of a team. They are a hell of a team. Don’t take them for granted. If we don’t realize it now, we’re never going to realize it.”
At his postgame news conference, Ruff sounded like a man who doesn’t recognize his team at the moment. For a long stretch of the season, the Sabres avoided the type of mistakes that have become frequent for them in this series.
“They’re a good team,” Ruff said. “But if you put the puck in the right place, you can control some of that play. I really feel that we fueled some of their aggression, and they get on you. They force some of those plays.”
The Sabres are turning the puck over at an alarming rate and giving the Canadiens way too much room to operate in all three zones of the ice. Montreal is breaking the puck out too easily, skating through the neutral zone too easily and making plays in the offensive zone much too easily. After taking a 1-0 series lead, the Sabres have looked outclassed by the Canadiens in two straight games.
“I think a little more of the same of what happened in Game 2 there,” Byram said. “We’re just letting them get to their game. They’re a good team. When we get to our game, we’re a really good team, too. We have to push to get on top of them, track and get above their forwards. They’re a good team, and when they get to their game, they’re hard to slow down. We just have to find a way to get on top of them and get some momentum going.”
Thompson thought the Sabres let their emotions get the best of them in this game. Maybe the crowd played a role in that. Nobody in Buffalo’s dressing room had ever experienced a playoff game in Montreal. In addition to being careless with the puck and missing assignments in the defensive zone, the Sabres gave the Canadiens six power plays and had five offensive-zone penalties. Montreal got two power-play goals.
“We gave them life,” Thompson said.
“The place was loud tonight, and you feel the energy, and you feel that they had momentum off of it. But that’s just something that we’ve got to get used to, something that can’t affect us — any of the outside noise,” he said. “It’s about everyone in this room and just getting to our game. I think we worried about other things that were out of our control: the refs, the calls and what they were doing. Just a little distracted, I thought, in my opinion.”
Last series, the Sabres hit the road in a similar spot, tied at 1 in a series coming off an ugly Game 2 loss. Ruff was calm and confident heading to Boston, and his team ended up winning all three road games in that series and eliminated the Boston Bruins in six games. By the end of Game 4 in Boston, you could hear the couple of thousand Sabres fans who made the trip to Boston. At the Bell Centre, the number of Sabres fans might have been in the single digits. There is no infiltrating this environment.
The Sabres also no longer have such a significant advantage in speed and skill as they did against the Bruins. That series was frustrating at times for the Sabres because of Boston’s neutral-zone trap and Jeremy Swayman’s prowess in net. But this challenge is a different one entirely. The Canadiens have looked faster than the Sabres. They’re crisper with the puck and overwhelming Buffalo all over the ice.
The beauty of the playoffs is that one game doesn’t necessarily need to have any bearing on the next. If the Sabres can respond with a win Tuesday, the series goes back to Buffalo tied at 2. But the only way that’s going to happen is if the Sabres make the necessary adjustments. They are trailing in a series for the first time in the postseason and will have to deal with the same rowdy crowd in Game 4 with a Canadiens team that has only gained more confidence by outscoring the Sabres 11-3 in the last two games.
“It’s a weird thing, the playoffs,” Byram said. “The momentum shifts, it’s a real mental grind. You win one, you think you’re winning in four. You lose one, you think you’re losing in five, then you lose again Game 3, and you just can’t let those thoughts get into your head. They’re a good hockey team, man, they showed that tonight. But we all know in here that when we’re at the top of our game and playing as good as we can, we’re a good hockey team, too. We just got to get there, get our game going, and we have a lot of confidence in this room. No one’s got their head hung walking out of here. They beat us, you take it like a man and move on to the next one.”
This is going to be a test for Ruff. The Sabres haven’t lost consecutive games since April 2 and 4 against the Ottawa Senators and Washington Capitals. Ruff pushed the right buttons in the Boston series, keeping his team calm and making a few subtle lineup changes to spark his team in that series. He tried that heading into this game, shuffling his power-play units and putting Sam Carrick in for Tyson Kozak.
The Sabres might need more than that. The third pair of Timmins and Logan Stanley was an issue for Buffalo in Game 3. The line of Ryan McLeod, Jack Quinn and Jason Zucker hasn’t provided much this postseason. And Zucker had only 6:47 of ice time in this game. Ruff attributed that to the fact he’s not on the top power play and doesn’t kill penalties. Because he sat for a while, Ruff wanted to play the guys who had been playing.
When Ruff sits down to rewatch this game, it’s not going to be easy to pinpoint where to make changes. He defended goalie Alex Lyon, saying this game wasn’t about him — and he’s right — so the easy move of a goalie change might not make sense. Outside of Zach Benson and Josh Doan, not many Sabres skaters had praiseworthy performances in this game. Rasmus Dahlin and Thompson each had a goal and an assist, but both still managed to finish minus-2.
Ruff could shake up his lines. He could turn to one of the extra forwards such as Tanner Pearson or Konsta Helenius. He could add some speed to the bottom defensive pair by inserting Michael Kesselring or Zach Metsa. But whatever lineup Ruff goes with, the Sabres have a lot to fix. The Canadiens aren’t going anywhere, and another loss would put the Sabres in a demoralizing 3-1 hole.
Before the playoffs, Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen said the playoffs are the best time to evaluate players. Now he’s going to see which Sabres step up now that their backs are against the wall.
“I mean, we’ve had our backs against the wall the entire season and dug ourselves out of a hole and found a way,” Thompson said. “It’s not something that’s foreign to us by any means. It’s been two games, so I’m not too concerned. I think everyone in this room believes in each other. We know what we need to do; it’s not a secret, there’s no magic answer, it’s just gonna come down to will. Just competing harder. And I think we have the guys that can do it and the guys that are gonna respond.”
