MONTRÉAL – It’s not often the Buffalo Sabres of the past 15 years have had big games, never mind big games that come 50 games into the season, and yet here they are in Montréal against the Canadiens fresh off having beaten them at home a week ago and set to play them again a week from now.
If these Sabres needed a warmup for what the race for the playoffs will be, this is it and Thursday night’s game at Bell Centre proved to be yet another example of what’s to come. If it was a test, it was one the Sabres passed but were left with enough to take away from it to improve later down the road.
The Sabres beat the Canadiens 4-2 and moved even closer to third place in the Atlantic Division, just two points behind Montréal with a game in hand.
“I think you can see in the East, every team is winning every night,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “We know how much the game meant to us and Montréal knows how much the game means to them. And every game, you can win a game, you can have the run we’ve had, and you’re sitting two points inside a playoff race. So, I mean, it’s good training for high intensity games.”
Every game is its own drama and every game for the Sabres of late has been dramatic as all get out. Thursday’s win was no different.
Buffalo opened a 2-0 lead in the first period with goals from Jason Zucker and a shorthanded goal by Beck Malenstyn. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second period when Konsta Helenius found Zach Benson for a goal as their youthful line with Noah Östlund kept it going for the second straight game.
While Zucker helped quiet the crowd early, a collision with Kaiden Guhle that sent Guhle’s stick flying and his head flying back went unpunished much to the chagrin of the crowd. The Canadiens also took offense to the play and sought out some form of retribution but had to go away empty-handed because the Sabres refused to engage what on replay seemed to be an accidental collision without incident. It’s all part of the fun this time of year.
“I think being up a goal there, obviously they’re going to try and get the crowd into it again,” Zucker said. “For us to get that second goal, again, they’re going to try and get the crowd into it more. There’s a time and a place for those situations to get into some scrums and allow the crowd to get into it more when you’re at home than on the road, so you’ve got to just be smart in those scenarios.”
That the Sabres second goal came shorthanded as they killed off a high-sticking penalty to Michael Kesselring who returned to action only doubled the effect of keeping the crowd out of it.
Malenstyn got a pass from Mattias Samuelsson and headed up the wing with a head of steam. He got around the Canadiens defenseman Noah Dobson, deked, and slid the puck past Samuel Montembeault.
“Guys are just smiling,” Malenstyn said. “Guys love it. I’m obviously not going to complain about it. It’s nice when those pucks go in. But for me, it’s just trying to play a consistent game every night. I’d love to sprinkle a few more just honest ones that bounce off my leg or something in front of the net, too. But, no, it’s always fun to be able to get those opportunities and put them in the net.”
Benson’s goal at 2:25 of the second period provided the kind of cushion that would allow any team to feel a bit more relaxed at home or on the road. A 3-0 lead is good, but it’s never safe, particularly in Montréal.
Cole Caufield got the Canadiens on the board 1:31 after Benson’s goal and with it awakened Bell Centre. At 11:20 it was Nick Suzuki putting one past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and sending the crowd into a frenzy. After all, the Canadiens have made a habit of storming back into games. Hell, they stole one away from the Minnesota Wild just the other night with a late third period Caufield goal.
Things can unravel quickly in Montréal and Ruff knew that all too well and used his timeout instantly.
“I just told them we’re real good team,” Ruff said. “We’re a real good team and we can play a lot better, and we’re playing, support each other, get back and make sure that our defensemen breaking out have their outs and just get back to playing our game. I said, ‘That’s their push,’ I said, ‘Now let’s answer it.’”
Answering wasn’t exactly in the cards for the remainder of the period, however. The Canadiens kept the Sabres under fire and Buffalo didn’t help matters by getting sloppy with puck play. The Canadiens outshot the Sabres 15-3 in the period and even though the period ended with Buffalo still up 3-2, momentum felt like it was on the home team’s side.
“It’s nice that we’re able to get these wins and pull them out, but I think we’ve got to weather the storm a little bit better and get ourselves out of it earlier than giving them a full 20 minutes of momentum there,” Zucker said. “At the same time, you’ve got to give them a lot of credit, they’re a heck of a team. They’re in the position they are for a reason, and I think we’ve got to give Uppie his flowers tonight. He kept us in that game multiple times.”
Luukkonen was the star of the show throughout the game. Despite the setup for this one being a game where the Canadiens roar back and ride away in the end with two points, it was Luukkonen who kept the door shut. He finished with 32 saves and yet another impressive performance on the road. After a tough 2-1 loss in Carolina where he played outstanding against the Hurricanes throw-it-all-at-the-net style, he managed the speed and creativity of the Canadiens expertly.
“I feel like we’re just playing good hockey right now,” Luukkonen said. “(Mike Bales), our goalie coach, has been really good to me here, too. Ups and downs, he’s helped me through it. Those two things, but especially our good team play right now has been awesome to be part of it. You want to win for your team you want to play well for your team, especially when we are on the hunt for a playoff spot. It’s fun to come to the rink every day. We have a good team and every time you get a shot of playing you want to do well.”
While Luukkonen made the saves, his teammates helped him out by clearing shot lanes and allowing him to see the puck, make saves, and slow the game down when the pace and pressure ramped up. It’s hard to not think back to last season when things between Luukkonen and the defense seemed to work against each other. Things are much different this year.
“I think when you get into groove and you’re winning hockey games and there’s guys in front of you are selling out, I think when he’s making big saves, you’ve got guys that are selling out for him,” Ruff said.
Selling out means parting the way at times and others, it means getting in front of shots. Malenstyn did that in a painful way in Nashville and has many other times throughout the season. Rasmus Dahlin did it Thursday night late in the game to block an Ivan Demidov shot. That block eventually turned into Lane Hutson’s stick snapping on an attempted shot and Peyton Krebs scoring from center ice into an empty net, his fourth empty net goal of the season. Dahlin was seen in pain on the bench and was spotted in the room after with an icebag on his arm.
There was no update on Dahlin from the coach, but the Sabres did lose Jacob Bryson to an upper-body injury and Zach Benson took an accidental elbow to the face from Zach Bolduc with just over two minutes left in the game but was on the ice to celebrate the win. It’s a grind of a season and selling out to win comes with a price.
But winning at Bell Centre and closing the gap on third place in the Atlantic all while learning how to better complete games like this in a hostile atmosphere? The bumps and bruises will hurt now, but the reward for success now and later can be worth it, even if it wasn’t perfect.
“Coming into a sold-out Bell Centre is as close to a playoff game as you’re going to get in the regular season,” Malenstyn said. “And this team’s been playing very well. Their fans are incredible. You can feel the energy when you come up to start the game. When they get a little bit of momentum it’s a hostile environment. It’s a great lesson for us how we eventually weathered that storm in that game, managed the momentum. We can learn from a few mistakes obviously, but when you come out on the right side of it, it makes it easier to make those adjustments and learn from those than when you come out with a loss.
“Everybody knows our conference, our division, is extremely tight right now. Every game’s going to be a playoff game. It doesn’t matter if you’re in 10th or first there’s like a six-point gap and everyone is playing above .500 hockey. It’s a great challenge for us to know that every single game we’re going to get the other team’s best. You can’t take anybody lightly. Hopefully we can stay on that path, and we can find ourselves in a playoff spot when all the dust settles. I think every team that gets in coming out of the east is going to be extremely well prepared just on how hard it was to get to that point.”