BUFFALO, N.Y. — Canada’s team is headed to the Eastern Conference finals.
Alex Newhook scored 11:22 into overtime and the Montreal Canadiens edged the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 Monday night to capture Game 7 of a thrilling back-and-forth series.
Game 1 in Carolina against the Hurricanes goes Thursday in Raleigh, N.C.
Phillip Danault and Zachary Bolduc also scored for Montreal, playing its 14th playoff game in 30 days after finding a way to survive two grueling, seven-game series. Newhook, who also scored the Game 7 winner in the first round against the Tampa Bay Lightning, became the second player in NHL history to score multiple Game 7 series-clinching goals in a single postseason, joining Boston’s Nathan Horton in 2011, when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup.
“I wasn’t sure if Jake (Evans) touched it, so I kind of looked at him to see if he was going to celebrate or not,” Newhook said after the game. “It’s a crazy feeling. A lot of emotion, obviously. It was a war all series long, and for it to end up being Game 7 in overtime, sometimes it just takes one shot. Coming across the (blue) line, I thought there was a shot opportunity. Great to see it find the back of the net, and there’s no better feeling than celebrating with your teammates after a win like that.”
Jakub Dobeš, who was pulled in Game 6 after being beaten for six goals, steadied himself for Game 7. It wasn’t highway robbery like his performance in Game 7 against the Tampa Bay Lightning two weeks ago, but it was pretty darn impressive nonetheless. His save late in the second period on Sabres center Tage Thompson was sensational and kept the score 2-1 entering the second intermission.
“I felt good last game,” Dobeš said. “But for sure, I wanted to be better. I think me getting pulled at home was kind of a wake-up call, and I took it personal. And we won today, so I’m really happy.”
The Canadiens have yet to lose back-to-back games in the entire postseason; they’re now 6-0 following a loss in these playoffs.
Rasmus Dahlin and Jordan Greenway scored for Buffalo, which rallied back from an early 2-0 deficit and tied it on Dahlin’s goal 6:27 into the third, but the Sabres couldn’t produce the go-ahead goal despite massive pressure in the Canadiens’ zone in the third period.
“You know, it hurts,” Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff said. “I told the team that it hurts. That pain will go away. But I won’t let this one game define the season we had. I told the players how proud I was of them. The battle that we took into Game 6 in Montreal and then came back here and gave ourselves every chance to win. This one game doesn’t define our season for us.”
The Sabres fell to 2-5 at home in the playoffs, a puzzling reality that will haunt them into their offseason.
In all, the road team went 5-2 in this series, and the Canadiens (6-2) and Sabres (5-1) are a combined 11-3 now on the road this postseason.
“You know, it was strange in the East, the disparity with the home and road,” Ruff said. “Besides the start of the game, I thought this was probably one of our better games. We really tilted the ice and had the game in our favor, but again didn’t find a way to win it. Our fans have been so great. You go back to the end of the year, the momentum they helped us with, the energy in this building, it would have been nice to close this one out here, just for how good they’ve been. But we didn’t quite get that done.”
The Habs, the youngest team in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs and the youngest team to advance to the conference finals since the 1993 Canadiens, will need to rely on that road-warrior success to find a way to upset the Canes, who have won all eight of their games this postseason, in the next round.
“We’ve said it for a long time: We knew something was brewing in here and how special this group is and how tight we are,” Habs winger Josh Anderson said. “We’ve been working hard to build what we got going on right now. Sometimes you got to go through those growing pains to be successful. It’s just nice to do this together and have an opportunity to move on to the next round. There’s four left now. It’s pretty exciting. And we’re not done yet.”
Despite the heartbreaking Game 7 loss at home, the Sabres can look back on a very successful season, winning the Atlantic Division and finally making the postseason for the first time in 15 years. They’ve got some big decisions looming: Ruff is on an expiring deal, as is top-six winger Alex Tuch.
Canadiens finally get a good start
The Canadiens scored first for only the second time in the series, and in so doing accomplished the No. 1 goal of any team playing a Game 7 on the road.
“Try to take the crowd out of it early,” Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle said Monday morning. “It’s going to be loud in there, their building’s going pretty good. Just keep it simple.”
Guhle played a primary role in that simplicity early on for Montreal. Anderson had an excellent forecheck to force Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram into a turnover deep in the Buffalo zone, popping the puck free for Alexandre Texier, who found Guhle sneaking down from the point.
Once he got the puck, Guhle did not attempt anything complicated. He threw the puck toward the net, where it struck Danault’s skate and beat Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen at 4:30 of the first period.
Once the Canadiens made it 2-0 with a power-play goal from Bolduc 10 minutes later, the KeyBank Center crowd was effectively taken out of it as a nervous energy took over the building.
The Canadiens didn’t dominate the start of the game — far from it, in fact — but just getting that early lead created the conditions they were looking for early on.
Of course, as soon as Dahlin tied it at 6:27 of the third, those fans were right back in it. — Arpon Basu, Canadiens writer
Sabres flip game in second
Through two periods, the Sabres had a 56-26 advantage in shot attempts at all strengths and a 28-17 advantage in five-on-five scoring chances. The Canadiens seemed content to give them outside ice and try to take away the dangerous areas. If not for a few highlight-reel saves from Dobeš, the Sabres could have been leading after two periods.
At the end of the second period, Dobeš stopped a Thompson wrist shot from point-blank range. Before that, he made a pair of saves on Alex Tuch. In the second period alone, the Sabres had a 19-8 advantage in scoring chances. That’s when they got their first goal of the game, when Samuelsson’s shot deflected off Greenway and in. But the work was done to turn the game before that. — Matthew Fairburn, Sabres writer
Sabres lean on Dahlin
By midway through the third period, the Sabres had a 33-12 advantage in shot attempts and 15-6 advantage in scoring chances during Dahlin’s five-on-five minutes.
It’s only fitting that the tying goal in the third period came off his stick because he was all over the ice in this game. His shot on the goal was the type of decisive, quick release that has made him one of the league’s most dangerous offensive defensemen.
Dahlin had a five-point night with his team facing elimination in Game 6 and matched that level of play in Game 7. Nobody on this team has been waiting longer to play in these moments than Dahlin, and he saved his best stuff for the biggest moments of Buffalo’s season. — Fairburn
Both goalies overcome doubt
There was a cloud of doubt surrounding both Dobeš and Luukkonen entering Game 7.
Dobeš was pulled for the first time in these playoffs after giving up six goals in Game 6, while Luukkonen has not exactly been a model of consistency this season. But both goalies answered the bell for their teams and gave them a chance to win this game.
Dobeš was particularly strong during the Sabres’ second-period push, and Luukkonen stopped both Texier and Anderson on breakaways while also making back-to-back saves on Cole Caufield in the first to keep the Canadiens’ lead at 2-0.
Dobeš finished with 37 saves, and Luukkonen had 22 for the Sabres. — Basu
Tried and true formula?
Guhle was talking Monday morning about how his team can lean on its experience in Game 7 against the Lightning in this game.
Then it seemed as though he suddenly realized what that Game 7 in Tampa was actually like.
“Obviously, we didn’t probably play our best,” Guhle said, “but Dobie played great for us.”
That Game 7 experience that seemed to be an advantage for the Canadiens didn’t quite turn out that way. Instead, they did their best to replicate that experience.
The Canadiens beat the Lightning in that game despite putting up only nine shots on goal, an NHL record-low for a win in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This wasn’t quite that, but once the Canadiens went up 2-0 in the first, they seemed to sit back in a shell, content to defend and try to keep the Sabres to the outside while they possessed the puck in their zone for shift after shift.
The Sabres made them pay for it in the second period and erased that lead early in the third. And once the game was tied, the Canadiens went back to attacking. — Basu
