Montreal, Quebec (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres have now won 6-of-7 on the road thanks to great goaltending, and Jeff Skinner breaking his nine game scoring drought.
The Sabres even survived giving up the first goal of the game to beat the Canadiens on Wednesday in Montreal, 3-2.
The Habs opened the scoring on Arber Xhekaj shot from the left point, and later took a 2-1 lead when Jayden Stuble’s shot from the left point went in off Peyton Krebs.
Montreal gets a lot of goals from the defense, as well as a lot of shots. The Canadiens had 48 shot attempts in this game, with 25 of them coming from defensemen. Overall, the Canadiens defense got 11 shots combined on Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
The Sabres seemed to be willing to let Montreal blast away from distance because Luukkonen was, again, lights out after one off game on Monday against the Anaheim Ducks.
Jeff Skinner had no goals and one assist in nine games since returning from injury, but it’s not surprising he broke through against Montreal. Skinner has 27 goals and 47 points in 42 career games against the Canadiens.
His goal on Wednesday was huge, because it came on a power play just 2:53 after Struble had given the Canadiens the lead again.
Before the second period was over, Rasmus Dahlin helped kill a power play rush by the Canadiens, and Zach Benson was right there to help cause a turnover. Alex Tuch took off the other way and showed a lot of confidence, ripping home his sixth game-winning goal of the season, which is eighth in the NHL.
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Even though Montreal outshot the Sabres, 11-4, in the third period, I didn’t get a sense Buffalo was ever in trouble. When they killed plays, they were making intelligent clears out of the zone.
The one time Henri Jokiharju fanned on a pass in front of Luukkonen, the Sabres goaltender got enough of the clean shot to steer it wide.
It seemed, to me, many of Montreal’s shot attempts in the third came from distance. Luukkonen made two other bell-ringer saves on a redirection by Josh Anderson, and another open shot by Jake Evans breaking in.
It took Buffalo 12 minutes to get a shot on goal in the third, but again, I didn’t think the period was awful.
The first overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft absolutely killed Montreal in this game. Juraj Slafkovsky took three penalties in the final 30:54 of the game, and cost his team one goal in the process.
I thought Tage Thompson did another good job of creating great chances, and is looking more like himself. However, he still isn’t scoring on Grade-A opportunities.
The Sabres don’t score many dirty goals, because they only have a handful of players that are around the net. It’s news when Zemgus Girgensons tips in a Jokiharju shot by being in front of the opposition's goal.
Buffalo finishes the 2023-24 season 2-1-1 against the Canadiens. They were 2-0-0 in Montreal, but lost both games in Buffalo.
The Sabres now have a points percentage of .537 on the road, which is 15th in the league.
Buffalo's current streak of 6-1-0 away from home started on Jan. 4 in Montreal. Their points percentage on the road since then is .857, which is second only to the Florida Panthers, who have won all nine road games they have played since then.
Since Jan. 1, Luukkonen is second in the league with a .934 save percentage, but is No. 1 with a 1.81 goals-against average. The sad part is he only has eight wins in 14 games, which is 10th in the league.
Dahlin was over 29 minutes for the sixth time in seven games. Jokiharju was the only other Sabres player to play over 20 minutes.
The Sabres are in Columbus to face the Blue Jackets on Friday night.
What will help is Columbus was in Anaheim on Wednesday, and has a long ride home. The Blue Jackets' 7-4 victory made them 2-2-0 on their road trip with wins in Anaheim and San Jose, paired with losses in Los Angeles and Ottawa.
