Michael Augello and Ryan O’Hara are live on the thread to bring you every detail from tonight’s opening game of the Second Round Stanley Cup Playoff series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Buffalo Sabres.
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Until this season, the Sabres had not reached the playoffs since 2010–11, when Ryan Miller was still their starting goaltender—the year after Team USA fell to Sidney Crosby and Team Canada in overtime of the Olympic gold medal game at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
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With that said, there’s every reason for Sabres fans to be excited and in this case, have some celebratory balloons in place. But by no means will this be an easy series. The Canadiens proved in their opening round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning that they could win with nine shots on net, but they will likely have to produce more shots on goal to have a chance of making it to the Eastern Conference Finals.
That may have been one of the quickest penalties I’ve seen to start a playoff game at least. Lane Hutson was penalized for tripping Zach Benson just 10 seconds into this one. It’s the ninth minor penalty that Benson has drawn in the postseason so far.
We’ve returned to 5-on-5 action after Buffalo failed to convert, but the Sabres had some opportunities. There was a brief break after Josh Doan fired a wrister from the doorstep that took Montreal goaltender Jakob Dobes’ mask clean off his face.
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Hutson had an unfortunate start for the Canadiens. First came a penalty, then he rang a shot off the crossbar after his wrister deflected off Alex Lyon’s pad. Things got worse when he tripped and fell at center ice, leading to an odd-man rush for the Sabres. Josh Doan finished the chance to give Buffalo an early advantage.
Buffalo is doing a fantastic job, especially Logan Stanley, at clogging up lanes in front of the net. Montreal will have to get creative if they want to get some quality shots on net.
The aforementioned Stanley went down the tunnel after blocking a shot earlier in the period and the Canadiens are struggling to remain disciplined as their captain, Nick Suzuki, has gone to the box for tripping Bowen Byram.
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Ryan McLeod scored his first goal of the playoffs at 13:26, with Doan once again showing his playmaking ability by finding him in the slot to make it a 2–0 game. Montreal is getting overwhelmed by the relentless pressure.
Buffalo will have to kill off a penalty in the final 2:02 of the frame as Rasmus Dahlin was called for interference after sending Alex Newhook into the crossbar. Montreal will get an opportunity on the power play, but their star forward, Cole Caufield took a big hit from Jordan Greenway and was slow to get up.
But Montreal responded with a power play goal and it was Suzuki, their captain making up for his earlier penalty to put the Canadiens on the board.
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