{"id":666597,"date":"2026-05-13T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/666597\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:58:09","slug":"canadiens-remain-upbeat-after-sabres-tie-series-with-win-in-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/666597\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens remain upbeat after Sabres tie series with win in Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens<\/a>, to a man, were rather pleased with their overall performance for most of Tuesday\u2019s playoff game against the Buffalo Sabres<\/a> at the Bell Centre.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, when the final horn sounded, it was the Sabres emerging with a 3-2 win, tying the second-round, best-of-seven series at 2-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had our chances,\u201d said Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis. \u201cI think we had 75 attempted shots. If you watch the Canadiens, it\u2019s rare we\u2019re going to hit those numbers. Apart from the start, it\u2019s tough not to like this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal conceded an early opening goal for the second straight game on home ice, courtesy of a Mattias Samuelsson<\/a> marker off the rush 6:32 into the first period.<\/p>\n

That lead was nearly doubled less than two minutes later thanks to Sabres forward Jack Quinn<\/a>. The initial video review on the play deemed Quinn\u2019s goal to be a good one, with Canadiens netminder Jakub Dobes<\/a> snagging the puck with his glove, albeit past the goal line.<\/p>\n

St. Louis immediately contested the officials\u2019 decision, contending that Sabres rookie Konsta Helenius<\/a> interfered with Dobes before the puck crossing the goal line. The referees agreed with the Montreal bench boss, reversing their original call to hold the Sabres lead to a single goal.<\/p>\n

St. Louis was confident in his decision to challenge the ruling on the ice, also seeing it as a way to spark his then-sluggish squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur start, to that point, wasn\u2019t great,\u201d admitted St. Louis. \u201cI look at it emotionally. If we win the challenge, it gives us a boost. That\u2019s what happened. If you lose the challenge, you need a big kill and sometimes, that can give you momentum, too. Win or lose, it would have given us an opportunity to get momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just over two minutes later, Alex Newhook<\/a> scored his team-leading sixth goal of the playoffs and fifth of the series to draw his club even.<\/p>\n

Cole Caufield<\/a> would also score his third power-play goal of the post-season with 12.2 seconds remaining in the first period to give Montreal a 2-1 lead heading into the locker room.<\/p>\n

It would be the only power-play goal the Canadiens would score across seven such opportunities throughout the game.<\/p>\n

Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki<\/a> says it wasn\u2019t for a lack of trying. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just the end play that didn\u2019t go in the net,\u201d said Suzuki. \u201cIt felt like we were breaking them down, getting our looks, the ones we were searching for. I hit the post, I think Slaf (Juraj Slafkovsky) missed a couple backdoor plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we got to go to the drawing board on the power play. We just got to be able to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaiden Guhle<\/a> agreed with his captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like our power play was moving the puck well and had chances,\u201d said Guhle. \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t capitalize. Sometimes, that happens in games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal outshot Buffalo 22-10 from the second period onward. However, it was Buffalo scoring a pair of goals, including the equalizer coming off a centre-ice dump-in by Sabres forward Tage Thompson<\/a> that took an unlucky bounce off the corner door, Dobes\u2019 pad and in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucks, honestly,\u201d said Caufield. \u201cI thought we played a pretty good game. There\u2019s some things that we can always get better at, but to see a fluke goal like that go in, it\u2019s obviously not the bounce you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montreal now finds itself in the same position the squad faced during their first-round matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a>, having split the opening four games of each series.<\/p>\n

Tasked with winning two of the next three games, the Canadiens remain undaunted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we had to go to Buffalo anyway,\u201d said Suzuki \u201cWe\u2019re a good road team. We\u2019ve shown that all year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jake Evans<\/a> also believes in his team\u2019s ability to rebound.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always bounce back,\u201d said Evans. \u201cWe believe in and have a lot of confidence in each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2026.<\/p>\n

Jordan Stoopler, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens, to a man, were rather pleased with their overall performance for most of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338,82],"class_list":["post-666597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666597","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=666597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}