{"id":678639,"date":"2026-05-19T01:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/678639\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T01:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:29:15","slug":"montreal-canadiens-leading-buffalo-sabres-through-first-period-in-decisive-game-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/678639\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens leading Buffalo Sabres through first period in decisive Game 7"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/montreal-canadiens\/8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/montreal-canadiens\/8\" target=\"_blank\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> are in the driver\u2019s seat through the first period in Game 7 on Monday, as they lead the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/buffalo-sabres\/7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/buffalo-sabres\/7\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> 2-0 at the KeyBank Center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The goals have come fast and furious in this series, with the game\u2019s first goal recorded within the first 6:30 of every game thus far. The trend continued on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Only 4:30 from puck drop, a shot from Montreal defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/kaiden-guhle\/8482087\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/kaiden-guhle\/8482087\" target=\"_blank\">Kaiden Guhle<\/a> deflected off <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/phillip-danault\/8476479\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/phillip-danault\/8476479\" target=\"_blank\">Phillip Danault<\/a>\u2019s skate and past Buffalo netminder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/ukko-pekka-luukkonen\/8480045\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/ukko-pekka-luukkonen\/8480045\" target=\"_blank\">Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/a>, giving the Canadiens the early 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Both Luukkonen and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/jakub-dobes\/8482487\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/jakub-dobes\/8482487\" target=\"_blank\">Jakub Dobes<\/a> traded athletic stops until there were under eight minutes remaining in the frame, before a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/zach-benson\/8484145\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/zach-benson\/8484145\" target=\"_blank\">Zach Benson<\/a> delay of game penalty sent Montreal to the power play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It took nearly the whole advantage before a backhanded feed from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/nick-suzuki\/8480018\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/nick-suzuki\/8480018\" target=\"_blank\">Nick Suzuki<\/a> found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/zachary-bolduc\/8482737\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/zachary-bolduc\/8482737\" target=\"_blank\">Zachary Bolduc<\/a> for the one-timer goal, giving the Canadiens the 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The winner of Monday\u2019s Game 7 will move on to face the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/carolina-hurricanes\/12\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/carolina-hurricanes\/12\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> in the Eastern Conference Finals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal Canadiens are in the driver\u2019s seat through the first period in Game 7 on Monday, as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[96397,49,48,2338,78846],"class_list":["post-678639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-buffalo-sabres-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-7","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-canadiens-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-8"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678639","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=678639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}