MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens\u2019 ability to follow up every loss in these playoffs with a win was a big storyline after they earned a road split in Buffalo, but it masked another reality.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens had also followed each of their wins with a loss.<\/p>\n
Until now.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens got power-play goals from Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd in the second period of a 6-2 win on Sunday against the Buffalo Sabres, going up 2-1 in the second-round series.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens had alternated wins and losses since winning Game 1 of their first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. While momentum rarely carries over from game to game in the playoffs, it is difficult not to feel like the Canadiens have a good dose of it heading into Game 4 here on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the momentum a lot, and we kept it for a long time,\u201d Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. \u201cWhen we lost that momentum \u2014 and you\u2019re going to lose momentum, Buffalo\u2019s an excellent team \u2014 we didn\u2019t hurt ourselves too much. (Jakub) Dobe\u0161 made some big saves, we defended well, we did the actions that aren\u2019t necessarily fun, blocking shots, boxing out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe defended well when it was time to defend, we played with a lot of pace and obviously we were able to create a lot of offensive chances and we spent a lot of time in their zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Newhook scored his team-leading fourth and fifth goals of the playoffs. Zack Bolduc and Kirby Dach also scored for the Canadiens, who got 26 saves from rookie goalie Dobe\u0161, including a few for the highlight reel in the third period as the Sabres pushed to tie it up. Dach made it a 5-2 game just before the midway point of the third.<\/p>\n
For the second straight game, the Sabres were on their heels by the second period. From the start of Game 2 to the end of the second period of Game 3, the Canadiens outscored the Sabres 9-3.<\/p>\n
Before the game, the Sabres expressed confidence in their ability to respond to a loss. They did it repeatedly during the regular season and in Round 1. They also went a perfect 3-0 on the road in the first round against Boston. But Buffalo has now not only lost its first road game of these playoffs, but it is also trailing in a series for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said before this started: They beat a hell of a team; they are a hell of a team,\u201d Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. \u201cDon\u2019t take them for granted. If we don\u2019t realize it now, we\u2019re never going to realize it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Cole has looked more like Cole\u2019<\/p>\n
Saturday morning in Buffalo, Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was asked if he saw signs of encouragement in 51-goal scorer Caufield\u2019s six shot attempts, his second-highest total of the playoffs, one night earlier in Game 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese first two games, I feel for me, Cole has looked more like Cole,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cI feel like he\u2019s trying to do all these things and still competing defensively and staying inside our structure defensively. He\u2019s very engaged. He cares about the team. We know that Cole\u2019s going to score goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pretty prophetic stuff, though it didn\u2019t seem like it would be for a while.<\/p>\n
Caufield whiffed on an easy clearing attempt in the first minute of the game, leading directly to Tage Thompson\u2019s early goal that put Buffalo ahead 1-0.<\/p>\n
Early in the second period, defenseman Lane Hutson put one on a platter for Caufield at the lip of the crease with a wide-open net in front of him, but the puck rolled just wide. The weight of the world that was already on Caufield seemed to be only getting heavier.<\/p>\n
But Hutson gave Caufield another shot at an empty net later in the second, and he didn\u2019t miss on this one, scoring his second of the playoffs on the power play to put Montreal ahead 2-1.<\/p>\n
He scored on his fifth shot attempt of the game, which is much closer to Caufield\u2019s usual volume.<\/p>\n
Slafkovsk\u00fd, who hadn\u2019t scored since his hat trick in Game 1 against the Lightning, also shed some weight off his shoulders by deflecting a Hutson shot home just past the midway point of the second.<\/p>\n
Caufield and Slafkovsk\u00fd are still looking for their first even-strength goal of these playoffs, but this was a step in the right direction. \u2014 Arpon Basu, Canadiens writer<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161 getting the better of Lyon<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161 is winning the goaltending battle so far in this series, looking unflappable no matter what the Sabres throw at him. On Sunday night, they ran him and yapped at him, but the Habs\u2019 rookie goalie looked unaffected, as he did in the first round.<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161\u2019 save from in close on Alex Tuch six minutes into the third period during a Buffalo power play was sensational, keeping Montreal ahead 4-2 at the time. It came after a series of other saves a few moments before.<\/p>\n
Chants of \u201cDoby, Doby, Doby\u201d could be heard several times from the Bell Centre crowd.<\/p>\n
He is absolutely dialed in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to find a way to solve him, just like we did with (Jeremy) Swayman,\u201d Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram said postgame.<\/p>\n
Alex Lyon gave up five goals Sunday night after giving up four in Game 2, and it could have been six goals, except an apparent Phil Danault goal in the second period was disallowed despite clear evidence of the puck crossing the line. I will say, it\u2019s hard to pin all of it on Lyon in Game 3. The Canadiens had so many open looks and odd-man breaks, and their power play was lethal.<\/p>\n
Still, you have to wonder: After giving up nine goals in two games, does Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff contemplate a goalie change for Game 4? \u2014 Pierre LeBrun, senior NHL columnist<\/p>\n
Power plays a story yet again<\/p>\n
We hate to sound like a broken record, but it\u2019s becoming such a major plotline in this series that it can\u2019t be ignored.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s even on a night where Buffalo\u2019s No. 1 unit finally (!) scored a power-play goal thanks to Rasmus Dahlin\u2019s beauty from above the faceoff circle in the second period. To be fair, the Sabres\u2019 two power plays in the third period did get some pretty good looks, so Buffalo\u2019s changes to the units had an effect.<\/p>\n
Still, the truth is inescapable: Montreal\u2019s dangerous power play scored twice on goals from Caufield and Slafkovsk\u00fd, and frankly, it could have scored four or five times. The Habs had 10 scoring chances on 6:20 of power-play time through two periods, compared to zero for Buffalo in 1:32 of power-play time, per Natural Stat Trick, which listed high-danger scoring chances at 4-0 Montreal on the power play.<\/p>\n
Yikes.<\/p>\n
Granted, the Habs had more power-play opportunities on the night. But that, too, is part of the story. Those were bad penalties by Dahlin (roughing at the first-period buzzer), Beck Malenstyn (running the goalie at 11:32 of the second period) and Alex Tuch (careless high stick on Slafkovsk\u00fd late in the middle period).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s already bad enough to be losing the power-play efficacy battle in this series, but deepening the issue with careless penalties and feeding that Habs power play more opportunities is ridiculous. Discipline has to be paramount for the Sabres the rest of this series.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, about that Habs power play \u2014 mercy. Where to start? Five dangerous options out there on that first unit. The penalty killers can\u2019t cheat towards one or two guys. All five Canadiens players on that unit can finish. It is eerily reminiscent of when the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 power play has been at its best over the last few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we just have been at it for so long,\u201d Hutson said of the power-play chemistry after Sunday\u2019s win. \u201cWe\u2019ve struggled (at times) throughout the year. But when you have the familiarity with the guys, and just playing with them, it makes it easy.\u201d \u2014 LeBrun<\/p>\n
Sabres can\u2019t capitalize on fast start<\/p>\n
The Sabres got a goal from Thompson 53 seconds into the game. That eased some of the concern coming out of Game 2, when Thompson was one of Buffalo\u2019s worst players. But the Sabres didn\u2019t build on that goal.<\/p>\n
Montreal handled that early push and got a goal from Newhook late in the first period to reach intermission tied 1-1. The Canadiens made it four straight goals when they broke the game open with three goals in the second period.<\/p>\n
That early goal aside, the Sabres were handily outplayed for the first two periods, a continuation of Game 2\u2019s 5-1 blowout loss. It\u2019s hard to single out which Sabres player was most responsible for the second period\u2019s lopsidedness because the entire Canadiens team was allowed too much space through the neutral zone.<\/p>\n
Defensive zone coverage was too loose, too. The Canadiens looked like the faster team for most of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cLots of mistakes,\u201d Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram said. \u201cYou don\u2019t lose games 6-2 without mistakes. Lost coverage. They out-worked us.\u201d \u2014 Matthew Fairburn, Sabres writer<\/p>\n
Zucker sees limited ice time<\/p>\n
Through two periods, Jason Zucker had played only 3:23 in this game. Zucker was one of Buffalo\u2019s most important players in the regular season, a heart-and-soul leader who provides energy and a secondary layer of goal scoring. Whatever the reason, Ruff didn\u2019t feel he could put him on the ice.<\/p>\n
Zucker did leave Game 4 of the Boston series with an injury. He came back to play the rest of the series, but now his ice time is clearly limited. His two lowest ice-time totals of the playoffs have come in the last two games. If Zucker isn\u2019t healthy enough to play his usual workload, the Sabres might need to consider a lineup change.<\/p>\n
After the game, Ruff said Zucker\u2019s reduced ice time was because he is no longer on the top power-play unit and the Sabres spent so much time killing penalties in this game. He said there was no issue physically. \u2014 Fairburn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens\u2019 ability to follow up every loss in these playoffs with a win was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":787908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[1720,3104,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-787907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-buffalo-sabres","9":"tag-montreal-canadiens","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116553788059878432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}