{"id":670442,"date":"2026-05-15T04:29:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T04:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/670442\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T04:29:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T04:29:29","slug":"canadiens-defeat-sabres-in-game-5-on-verge-of-eastern-conference-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/670442\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens defeat Sabres in Game 5, on verge of Eastern Conference Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ivan Demidov<\/a> scored his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal and had an assist, and Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a> had three assists for Montreal, which is the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division. Phillip Danault<\/a> and Lane Hutson<\/a> each had two assists, and Jakub Dobes<\/a>\u00a0made 33 saves.<\/p>\n

Jason Zucker<\/a>, Josh Doan<\/a> and Konsta Helenius<\/a>\u00a0scored for Buffalo, the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey pushed harder than we did,\u201d Sabres forward Alex Tuch<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cWe gave them opportunities and chances, and on ours we didn\u2019t bear down, and not the best puck play by us. And, yeah, we got outworked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a> allowed five goals on 23 shots before being replaced at the start of the third period by Lyon, who made two saves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing (Luukkonen) could\u2019ve done on the first goal. There\u2019s nothing he could\u2019ve done on the second goal,\u201d Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. \u201cI think the (fourth) goal that went in from a real tough angle, I think that\u2019s one that he would want back. So, if I would\u2019ve made a decision, would it have made a difference? Possibly. But all year, we haven\u2019t made it about our goaltender, and we\u2019re not gonna make it about our goaltender now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The teams combined for five goals in the opening 10:15.<\/p>\n

Zucker gave the Sabres a 1-0 lead at 2:00 of the first period. Jack Quinn<\/a>\u00a0put a wrist shot towards net from above the left face-off circle, and the puck deflected off Zucker’s right skate and then off Montreal defenseman Mike Matheson<\/a>\u00a0in front before going into the net. It was Zucker’s first playoff goal since April 21, 2024, when he was a member of the Nashville Predators.<\/p>\n

Cole Caufield<\/a> tied it 1-1 at 6:31, redirecting Suzuki’s pass into an open net following a Buffalo turnover in the defensive zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ivan Demidov scored his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal and had an assist, and Juraj Slafkovsky had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-670442","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\/670442","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=670442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}