MONTREAL (AP) \u2014 Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 18 saves after starter Alex Lyon stopped only one of the four shots he faced, and the Buffalo Sabres roared back to beat the Montreal Canadiens 8-3 on Saturday night and force a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference semifinal series.<\/p>\n
The winner Monday night in Buffalo will face Carolina for the conference title and a chance to play for the Stanley Cup. The Hurricanes swept both of their series, last playing May 9.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you would have asked every guy in here in September if they would have taken being in Game 7 in Round 2, we all would have signed up for that,\u201d Buffalo forward Tage Thompson said. “So, we\u2019re in a great spot. Now it\u2019s just one game. That\u2019s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin had a goal and four assists for a team playoff-record five points.<\/p>\n
Buffalo came back after trailing 3-1 midway through the first period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believed in it from the beginning and (Luukkonen) came in and gave us a little boost,\u201d Dahlin said. \u201cIt was a mix of everything, but I\u2019m super happy with the character from today\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack Quinn scored twice and added an assist, Thompson had three assists and an empty-net goal, and Zach Benson and Jack Quinn each had a goal and an assist. Konsta Helenius and Zach Metsa also scored.<\/p>\n
Arber Xhekaj, Ivan Demidov and Jake Evans scored for Montreal, which won a Game 7 at Tampa Bay in the first round. Jakub Dobes stopped 27 of 33 shots, and Jacob Fowler made a save and allowed a goal in relief.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty shocked,\u201d Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. \u201cWe\u2019re up 3-1 in the first period and we lose 8-3.”<\/p>\n
After Dahlin opened the scoring 32 seconds in, Montreal chased Lyon with the three-goal burst.<\/p>\n
Xhekaj tied it at 1:40, Demidov scored on a power play at 8:12 and Evans made it 3-1 on a short-handed break with 9:46 left. Luukkonen then took over in goal, and Zucker got one back for Buffalo on a power play with 6:04 to go in the period.<\/p>\n
Benson tied it a minute into the second, slipping in a short backhander from the left side. Quinn put Buffalo ahead on a power play with 9:06 left in the second, slapping a one-timer from the top of the right circle past Dobes. Helenius made it 5-3 with 7:01 remaining in the period, striking from short range.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did have control of it,\u201d Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson said. \u201cThey made a push, they made some good plays, and we didn\u2019t really fight back hard enough for whatever reason.<\/p>\n
Quinn added his second of the night on a power play midway through the third. Thompson scored into the empty net, and Metsa capped the scoring on a late power play.<\/p>\n
Buffalo was 4 for 6 on the power play. Montreal was 1 for 3.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL (AP) \u2014 Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 18 saves after starter Alex Lyon stopped only one of the four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[23940,118,3297,48214,9,11,10,49,51,50,74845],"class_list":["post-235073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-ap-sports","tag-associated-press","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-nhl-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}