{"id":661807,"date":"2026-05-11T07:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/661807\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T07:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T07:40:08","slug":"sabres-get-too-emotional-in-game-3-handed-1st-road-loss-of-stanley-cup-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/661807\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres get \u2018too emotional\u2019 in Game 3, handed 1st road loss of Stanley Cup Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the teams went into the first intermission tied at 1-1, the Canadiens broke the game open in the second period, with goals by Cole Caufield<\/a> (6:05), Zachary Bolduc<\/a> (10:43) and Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a> (12:17), before getting one back at 14:46 on the power play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of mistakes. You don\u2019t lose games 6-2 without mistakes,\u201d Byram said. \u201cLost coverage. They outworked us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Sabres, it marked the first time they had lost on the road in these playoffs, having won Games 3, 4 and 6 in Boston against the Bruins. There had been talk before the game about how their own building was equal to Bell Centre in its exuberance, and about how they needed to embrace the madness and channel it into their own play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there were impacts, which the Sabres will need to correct ahead of a Game 4 in which the crowd will be just as rowdy, just as deafening, just as interested in throwing Buffalo off its game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge, for sure,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cPlace was loud tonight and you feel the energy and you\u2019d feel that they had momentum off of it. But that\u2019s just something that we\u2019ve got to get used to, something that can\u2019t affect us, any of the outside noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thought they worried too much about that noise, the calls by the officials, the game within the game, about all the pieces they had tuned out in their series against the Bruins in the first round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we got a little too emotional tonight too,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe talk about all the time just staying even-keel, highs and lows, just try to stay right in the middle, and I thought tonight we really let our emotions get the better of us. Just got to regroup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long series. We\u2019re not in the spot we want to be, but we\u2019ve got an opportunity to take one from them next game.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is good news for the Sabres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They had some of their best power plays of the postseason, saw some life from Thompson, and got a better understanding of what it means to play in Bell Centre in the postseason. They are, they hope, smarter now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also know what it\u2019s like to be here, to be down and facing a closing window, as they were earlier in the regular season before picking up their game, turning their season around, and making the playoffs for the first time since 2011.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Thompson said, \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing it all year. We\u2019ve had our backs against the wall the entire season and dug ourselves out of a hole and found a way. It\u2019s not something that\u2019s foreign to us by any means. It\u2019s been two games, so I\u2019m not too concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone in this room believes in each other. We know what we need to do; it\u2019s not a secret, there\u2019s no magic answer, it\u2019s just going to come down to will. Just competing harder. And I think we have the guys that can do it and the guys that are going to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the teams went into the first intermission tied at 1-1, the Canadiens broke the game open in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-661807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661807","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=661807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}