Montreal, Quebec (WGR 550) - The Buffalo Sabres best players seemed to be having a lot of trouble playing against the Montreal Canadiens, but when it mattered most in an elimination game, Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch and Josh Norris showed up with their best game helping the Sabres stay alive with a decisive 8-3 victory. This forces a seventh a deciding game in Buffalo on Monday.
Dahlin tied a franchise record held by John Tucker and Derek Roy recording five points on Saturday.
Thompson and Tuch were broken up as a line and both flourished. Norris was Thompson’s center along with Zach Benson and the line combined for two goals and five assists for seven points. Norris won 11-of-17 faceoffs.
Tuch didn’t have a point, but playing with Josh Doan and Konsta Helenius invigorated him. Tuch skated well all night, won many board battles and forced Jakub Dobes into some amazing saves. Tuch had two clean breakaways and Dobes robbed him.
Norris seems to be skating extremely well, and he’s been willing to get into the tough areas to compete which makes me believe his injuries are behind him.
Dahlin got the Sabres off on the right note with a nifty individual effort. As he came down the middle with the puck, he made Juraj Slafkovsky look absolutely silly as he bit on Dahlin’s move and feebly slid right by. Dahlin who then put Dobes down and roofed a backhand to make it 1-0.
The game then became 3-1 Montreal despite the Sabres playing well. It was absolutely an Alex Lyon problem, not a defensive effort problem and Lyon was pulled after allowing three goals on four shots. Enter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen who had himself ready and pitched an 18-save shutout in 49:41 of work. That’s right, Buffalo was playing and defending so well, it only gave up 18 shots in the final 49:41 of the game. They also scored seven unanswered goals.
I think it’s really something that in the most important games of their NHL or Sabres careers, all the big guns and leaders stepped up and played their best.
The next thing to talk about is the Sabres power play. It was a horrific start as for one of the few times all game, one Canadien outworked two Sabres and the puck wound up in the back of the net. Jake Evans won the battle, led a 2-on-1 and beat Lyon on a shot that needed to be stopped. That would be the last time the Sabres power play would disappoint on the night as they netted four goals with the extra man.
They battled hard, moved the puck quickly and efficiently, had good entries and got pucks and players to the net.
Jack Quinn got two of those goals scoring his first ever professional playoff goals. Quinn had gone 11 NHL playoff games without a goal and 10 AHL playoff games without one.
Quinn has had good opportunities, but just couldn’t get the puck to the back of the net. In this game he was able to get himself in position where his teammates had open passing lanes to him and he had open shooting lanes to the net.
Norris made an absolutely gorgeous cross-crease pass to Jason Zucker for one power play goal and at age 27, Zach Metsa played in his first NHL playoff game and snuck one under Jacob Fowler for his first NHL playoff goal and point.
Ruff knew it may be difficult for the injured Owen Power to get through the game, so he wanted Metsa in the lineup in case Power couldn’t finish. Power showed his toughness and had another terrific game playing 22:22. Ruff has essentially decided to go with three defensemen on the penalty kill using Power, Mattias Samuelsson and Conor Timmins. Dahlin and Bo Byram didn’t get any penalty killing action.
Thompson had been getting a lot of criticism for his play in this series, but he’s answered in a big way. Thompson has vaulted himself to second in league playoff scoring with five goals and 10 assists for 15 points in 12 games. Only Mitch Marner of the Vegas Golden Knights is better with seven goals and 11 assists for 18 points in the same amount of games. Thompson said as leaders, they felt if the team stuck together, they’d be fine,
“When you go through adversity and tough times you’ve got to lean on each other and we’ve done that all year and I think we just embraced that.”
This is a team that can tell each other about the bad and the good with no hard feelings. Zucker said if they were going to win Game 6, of course there were honest and hard conversations,
“We tried to keep it fun, but we also had some stern talks. Yesterday in the meeting we watched everything that we did poorly in the last game and a few before and we also watched some things that we did really well, so it’s a mix of both, you’re trying to see what you’re doing well and not doing well and there’s some very brutally honest conversations happening, but that’s the way it goes and it’s only going to help us become a better team.”
As far as this series goes, Dahlin and Thompson are the two leading scorers between the two teams. In the six games Dahlin has two goals and seven assists for nine points and Thompson has three goals and five assists for eight points, but it can’t end for them there. Montreal is 5-2 on the road in the playoffs and they went into Tampa and beat the Lightning in Game 7 despite being outshot 29-9.
Saturday’s win makes the Sabres 5-1 on the road in these playoffs, but they’re 2-4 at home. If the Sabres best players are again their best players and they continue to not complicate the game, they’ll have a good chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Buffalo's best players all showed up for Game 6 in a big way
Buffalo's best players all showed up for Game 6 in a big way
