{"id":654726,"date":"2026-05-07T04:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T04:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/654726\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T04:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T04:05:11","slug":"sabres-vs-canadiens-final-score-result-from-game-1-of-nhl-playoffs-eastern-conference-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/654726\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres vs. Canadiens final score, result from Game 1 of NHL playoffs Eastern Conference semifinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sabres vs. Canadiens final score, result from Game 1 of NHL playoffs Eastern Conference semifinals<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BUFFALO, N.Y.\u00a0\u2014 The Buffalo Sabres<\/a> hadn\u2019t played a game in the second round of the NHL playoffs in 19 years.<\/p>\n

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They looked right at home on their local ice in the KeyBank Center on Wednesday night, though, in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Buffalo, sparked by its third and fourth lines, jumped out to leads of 2-0 and 4-1 before holding on to win.<\/p>\n

Was this a Sabres team energized by extra rest relative to the Canadiens? Maybe, but they had yet to play this complete a game on home ice during the playoffs. Mostly, they looked like a group that was getting more and more comfortable with this big stage.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Maple Leafs winning lottery doesn’t mean what you think for Auston Matthews<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Canadiens, on the other\u00a0 hand, found plenty of shots. A game after having just nine shots on goal, they outshot Buffalo.<\/p>\n

But in net, Jakub Dobes<\/a> allowed four of the first ten shots he faced to get across the line. That proved too much for the Habs to overcome.<\/p>\n

Below, you can see the updates we tracked live from the KeyBank Center throughout the night.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Yes, Sabres still play ‘O Canada’ before playing a team from Canada<\/a><\/p>\n

Sabres vs. Canadiens final score<\/p>\n

1st<\/p>\n

2nd<\/p>\n

3rd<\/p>\n

Score<\/p>\n

Canadiens<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Sabres<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

0<\/p>\n

4<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0NHL salary cap change should be good news for Sabres, Alex Tuch<\/a><\/p>\n

Sabres vs. Canadiens final updates, result<\/p>\n

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Third period<\/p>\n

– Final: Sabres 4, Canadiens 2.<\/p>\n

– Montreal uses its timeout with 1:31 to play needing two goals.<\/p>\n

– Lyon glove save with 2:19 left. Still 4-2.<\/p>\n

– Massive block by Rasmus Dahlin<\/a> with three minutes left to keep it 4-2. Montreal has pulled Dobes.<\/p>\n

– Tyson Kozak<\/a> missed an open net, too. Buffalo hasn’t quite taken their chances to totally put this away.<\/p>\n

– With 6:14 remaining, the score holds at 4-2.<\/p>\n

– A strong shot by Jack Quinn<\/a> is denied by Dobes with about 10 minutes to play. The goalie keeps Montreal within two.<\/p>\n

– Lyon and Dobes each with solid saves early in the third. With 13:58 to play, Sabres still lead 4-2.<\/p>\n

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– Jack Quinn hit nothing when he had a wide open net in front of him, smashing it into the boards instead.<\/p>\n

– Third period underway. Alex Lyon<\/a> immediate save. Montreal needs to get two back.<\/p>\n

Second period<\/p>\n

– End of two: Sabres 4, Canadiens 2.<\/p>\n

– Canadiens goal. Kirby Dach<\/a> scores on his own rebound with 3:29 left in the second period. Sabres lead 4-2. Dach with great persistence as he was being tripped but still found a way to bat it in from the ground.<\/p>\n

– Lyon with a glove save with 4:09 left in the second, and a lot of traffic in front gets the first real post-play extended scuffle of the game. Teams eventually separated without anything crazy happening.<\/p>\n

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– A triple save by Dobes with five minutes left in the second period denies a couple great chances for Buffalo.<\/p>\n

– Dobes glove save on a good drive by Dahlin sends it to a timeout with 8:07 left in the second period. Buffalo has scored on 4 of its 10 shots on goal.<\/p>\n

– Sabres’ first penalty kill couldn’t get off for almost the whole power play, but Alex Lyon deflects a save out of play with just six seconds left to get the change.<\/p>\n

– Canadiens right on the power play almost immediately. It’s Beck Malenstyn<\/a> high stick.<\/p>\n

– Bowen Byram<\/a>. 4-1 Buffalo. 10:59 left in the second period. Power play goal, a second on the man-up for the Sabres. Josh Doan<\/a> with a key screen in front.<\/p>\n

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– Buffalo on the power play with 12:47 left in the second period. Kaiden Guhle<\/a> for a cross check.<\/p>\n

– Jack Quinn had a great chance on the break with 13:20 left in the second period. He hit the metal.<\/p>\n

– Canadiens have just one shot on target through six minutes of the second period, and Alex Lyon was up to the task.<\/p>\n

– 3-1 Sabres. Jordan Greenway<\/a> checked out his options and figured, hey, let’s shoot it myself. He goes top shelf and finds the cookies, over Dobes’ left shoulder. 16:28 left in the second period, as the shot looks like it tipped off the goalie’s glove and in. Assist to Mattias Samuelsson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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– A couple of half chances to begin the second period, including Tage Thompson<\/a> from a dangerous area, but about 2:30 into the frame and not much to note.<\/p>\n

– Brian Gionta<\/a> and Dwayne Roloson wave the towels to get the fans fired up before the second period. The Benson line again starts the period for Buffalo.<\/p>\n

First period<\/p>\n

– Montreal outshoots Buffalo 10-6, but the Sabres hold the lead on the scoreboard. Buffalo got great play from its third and fourth lines, led respectively by Zach Benson<\/a> and Beck Malenstyn. Montreal looks most dangerous on the power play.<\/p>\n

– End of one: Sabres 2, Canadiens 1.<\/p>\n

– Canadiens goal — Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a> gives it to Nick Suzuki<\/a> for a tap-in on the power play. With 43.4 seconds left in the first period, the Sabres now lead 2-1.<\/p>\n

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– Canadiens will go on the power play with 2:02 left in the first period. Rasmus Dahlin for interference.<\/p>\n

– It remains 2-0 Buffalo with 3:11 in the first period. Montreal has outshot the Sabres, 7-6.<\/p>\n

– Ryan McLeod<\/a> from a tight angle. 2-0 Sabres, a powerplay goal with 6:34 left in the first period. And guess who else on the assist? It’s Zach Benson. Josh Doan had the secondary assist.<\/p>\n

– Sabres powerplay with 8:25 left in the first. Nick Suzuki for tripping. It was Bowen Byram who got into a dangerous position to draw the trip.<\/p>\n

– Another chance on the doorstep. Ivan Demidov<\/a> denied this time by Lyon. 9:12 to play in the first.<\/p>\n

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– Phillip Danault<\/a> had the best chance for Montreal, point blank about nine minutes into this one, but Lyon slid well and denied it.<\/p>\n

– Montreal is creating more chances than it did in its Game 7 win over Tampa Bay, when it had just nine shots on goal for the game. Alex Lyon will have to be sharp.<\/p>\n

– 1-0 Sabres. Zach Benson takes it away, drives the zone, and sets up Josh Doan for a tap-in. Benson is every fan’s favorite. He proves why by being a pest and getting a brilliant takeaway and assist.<\/p>\n

– Lane Hutson<\/a> wide open in the left slot but Alex Lyon stands strong with 15:45 left in the first.<\/p>\n

– First shift for the Sabres’ fourth line is a fantastic one with three big hits and a great setup for defenseman Logan Stanley<\/a>, although it gets blocked.<\/p>\n

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– Canadiens kill the power play. Only one shot, and a lot of failed entries for Buffalo.<\/p>\n

– Buffalo’s first shot on the power play comes 1:50 into it, and it knocks off Jakub Dobes’ mask, but he makes the save.<\/p>\n

– Sabres power play 30 seconds into the game. Lane Hutson to the box. Tripping.<\/p>\n

Pregame<\/p>\n

– Bill Fichtner hits the drum and it’s hockey time.<\/p>\n

– The Sabres are going with energy on their starting line in this one — Zach Benson, Josh Doan, Josh Norris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

– The teams are back on the ice. The Sabres’ mascot has descended from the ceiling. A couple of anthems and then playoff hockey.<\/p>\n

– The Canadiens bring Arber Xhekaj<\/a> back into the lineup on the third defenseman pairing with Noah Dobson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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– Player warmups wrapping up about 6:45 p.m. Tage Thompson slots in a backhand, five-hole shot past backup Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a> and skates off after finishing on a make. KeyBank Center filling in nicely.<\/p>\n

– As was mostly expected, Sam Carrick<\/a> remains out with injury for the Sabres.<\/p>\n

– There’s a towel on each seat in the place for fans to wave. It reads “Buffalo versus everybody,” with the words going top-to-bottom so it also looks like it says Buffalo over everybody.<\/p>\n

– There are a lot of fans already in the building in Canadiens red, white and blue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

– An hour before listed puck drop, the warmup clock reads 47 minutes, which suggests that with all the pregame proceedings, this game shouldn’t start too long after the listed 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

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– For those wondering: Yes, there are plenty of Canadiens fans wandering around downtown Buffalo on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

– This game should feature a matchup of two red-hot goalies, with Alex Lyon in net for the Sabres and Jakub Dobes tending the twine for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n

More NHL news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sabres vs. Canadiens final score, result from Game 1 of NHL playoffs Eastern Conference semifinals originally appeared on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[191254,44930,27560,64,2368,63,316657,316658,316656,6581,101969,132684,116509,230789,208604,30577,314580,207309,70268,55997,3922,250945,179059,5790,575,202857,109059,195580,103474,132683,316659,85,167950,216270,94994,127095],"class_list":["post-654726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-alex-lyon","tag-alex-tuch","tag-arber-xhekaj","tag-au","tag-auston-matthews","tag-australia","tag-beck-malenstyn","tag-bowen-byram","tag-brian-gionta","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-ivan-demidov","tag-jack-quinn","tag-jakub-dobes","tag-jordan-greenway","tag-josh-doan","tag-josh-norris","tag-juraj-slafkovsky","tag-kaiden-guhle","tag-kirby-dach","tag-lane-hutson","tag-leafs","tag-logan-stanley","tag-mattias-samuelsson","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nhl","tag-nick-suzuki","tag-noah-dobson","tag-phillip-danault","tag-rasmus-dahlin","tag-ryan-mcleod","tag-sam-carrick","tag-sports","tag-tage-thompson","tag-tyson-kozak","tag-ukko-pekka-luukkonen","tag-zach-benson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}