{"id":655880,"date":"2026-05-08T11:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/655880\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T11:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:38:19","slug":"nhl-playoff-preview-montreal-canadiens-at-buffalo-sabres-with-line-combinations-05-08-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/655880\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Playoff Preview: Montreal Canadiens at Buffalo Sabres with Line Combinations 05\/08\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\tNHL Playoff Preview: Montreal Canadiens at Buffalo Sabres with Line Combinations 05\/08\/2026 | Inside The Rink<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"skip-link screen-reader-text\" href=\"#content\">Skip to content<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/\" class=\"custom-logo-link\" rel=\"home nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Clean-Logo-1.png\" class=\"custom-logo\" alt=\"Inside The Rink Logo\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/boxscorejunkie.com\/nhl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/cropped-Life-Insurance.png .png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/\" rel=\"home nofollow noopener\" itemprop=\"item\" target=\"_blank\">Home<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/category\/nhl\/\" itemprop=\"item\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NHL<\/a>NHL Playoff Preview: Montreal Canadiens at Buffalo Sabres with Line Combinations 05\/08\/2026<\/p>\n<p>          <img width=\"1200\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-9.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>AP Photo\/Jeffrey T. Barnes<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens (4-2-2) at Buffalo Sabres (5-1-1)<\/p>\n<p>Venue: KeyBank Center<br \/>Date: Friday, May 8<br \/>Time: 7:00 pm EST<br \/>How To Watch:\u00a0TNT\/truTV\/HBO Max<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ticketmaster.evyy.net\/c\/5142595\/264167\/4272?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ticketmaster.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Purchase tickets via Ticketmaster<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens News &amp; Notes:<\/p>\n<p>The Canadiens dropped the first game of the series on Wednesday night. They\u2019ll look to even the series before returning home. They\u2019re averaging 2.3 goals per game while allowing 2.4 goals per game.<\/p>\n<p>Buffalo Sabres News &amp; Notes<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres jumped out to a 1-0 series lead and will now look to take a commanding 2-0 series lead before heading to Montreal. They\u2019re averaging 3.6 goals per game while allowing two goals per game.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens Projected Lines<\/p>\n<p>Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky<br \/>Newhook-Evans-Demidov<br \/>Texier-Danault-Anderson<br \/>Bolduc-Veleno-Dach<\/p>\n<p>Matheson-Carrier <br \/>Guhle-Hutson<br \/>Xhekaj-Dobson<\/p>\n<p>Dobes<br \/>Fowler<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/search?q=Montreal&amp;options%5Bprefix%5D=last\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get your Montreal Hockey Merchandise Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Buffalo Sabres Projected Lines:<\/p>\n<p>Krebs-Thompson-Tuch<br \/>Zucker-McLeod-Quinn<br \/>Benson-Norris-Doan<br \/>Greenway-Kozak-Malenstyn<\/p>\n<p>Samuelsson-Dahlin<br \/>Byram-Power<br \/>Stanley-Timmins<\/p>\n<p>Lyon<br \/>Luukkonen<\/p>\n<p>Buy Buffalo Hockey Merchandise Below!<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/collections\/florida-hockey?_pos=1&amp;_psq=florida&amp;_ss=e&amp;_v=1.0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/collections\/boston?_pos=1&amp;_psq=bost&amp;_ss=e&amp;_v=1.0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/collections\/tampa-bay-hockey?_pos=1&amp;_psq=tamp&amp;_ss=e&amp;_v=1.0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/collections\/buffalo-hockey?_pos=1&amp;_psq=buffalo&amp;_ss=e&amp;_v=1.0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Hockey \u2013 Inside The Rink<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Players To Watch:<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens<\/p>\n<p>Nick Suzuki scored a goal in Wednesday\u2019s loss. He now has seven points in the playoffs on two goals and five assists.<\/p>\n<p>Buffalo Sabres<\/p>\n<p id=\"h-\">Josh Doan scored a goal and added an assist in Wednesday\u2019s win over Montreal. He has five points in the playoffs on two goals and three assists, which have come in three of the last four games. <\/p>\n<p>Injury Report:<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens<\/p>\n<p>F Patrik Laine \u2013 IR<\/p>\n<p>Buffalo Sabres<\/p>\n<p>F\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/tag\/justin-danforth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justin Danforth<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 IR<br \/>F Jiri Kulich \u2013 IR<br \/>F Sam Carrick \u2013 DTD<br \/>G Colten Ellis \u2013 DTD<br \/>C Noah Ostlund \u2013 Out<\/p>\n<p>Next Game:<\/p>\n<p>\tDiscover more from Inside The Rink<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px;font-size:15px\">Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/author\/clavallee\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/276326315b493f582c4d87a8721917f57a6f9df6b8a3bc8ca3c490d0be2e9c6e.png\"  class=\"avatar avatar-75 photo\" height=\"75\" width=\"75\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\u00a9 2021-2025 Inside The Rink\u00ae<\/p>\n<p>This website has no affiliation to any of the hockey leagues it reports on. All materials not owned by Inside The Rink LLC are used for editorial purposes only. <a href=\"https:\/\/insidetherink.com\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NHL Playoff Preview: Montreal Canadiens at Buffalo Sabres with Line Combinations 05\/08\/2026 | Inside The Rink Skip to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[46786,741,49,48,68987,164166,2338,743,168422,234575,10099],"class_list":["post-655880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-atlantic-division","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-injury-report","tag-josh-doan","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nhl-game-preview","tag-nhl-playoff-preview","tag-nick-suzuki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}