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<\/p>\nBUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 After the Montreal Canadiens beat the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night, Montreal captain Nick Suzuki had already turned his attention to the team\u2019s matchup with the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night. In a locker room speech after that win, Suzuki referred to the game against the Sabres as a \u201cmust win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suddenly, those are the stakes in these Sabres-Canadiens games. This was the third matchup between these two teams this month as they have ping-ponged back and forth between third and fourth place in the Atlantic Division. Suzuki wasn\u2019t wrong to place that type of significance on this game, and his team responded accordingly with a 4-2 comeback win on the road.<\/p>\n
This was just the second time all season the Sabres have lost a game when they were leading entering the third period. Buffalo is still 20-4-1 in its last 25 games, a stretch that has vaulted them into contention for a top three spot in the Atlantic Division. But the sting of this loss was written all over Rasmus Dahlin\u2019s face after the game. Part of it was all of the narrow misses the Sabres had that could have swung the game. Tage Thompson and Jack Quinn hit posts. Dahlin himself had a few prime chances and couldn\u2019t convert.<\/p>\n
There was added frustration with a large chunk of the crowd, particularly in the lower bowl, wearing the visiting team\u2019s colors. As they typically do, Montreal fans traveled well, creating and taking away Buffalo\u2019s home-ice advantage. Sabres fans made an effort to drown out the \u201cGo Habs Go\u201d chants, but it led to at best a split crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really, really appreciate the fans that came out, but I don\u2019t want to see that many red in the future,\u201d Dahlin said.<\/p>\n
Many season-ticket holders probably dumped their tickets to this game early in the season, knowing they could recoup some money from a rabid Canadiens fan base. And that was before the Sabres turned their season around and went on a run unlike any other in franchise history. Why the tickets got sold isn\u2019t as important as the fact that they were sold, and in a game as close as this one was, every little edge matters.<\/p>\n
Over the last month, these teams have played each other three times. They\u2019ve now split the season series 2-2 with the Sabres taking two of the three games this month. The Canadiens have a two-point lead in the standings, but the Sabres still have a game in hand.<\/p>\n
Each time these two teams play it has resulted in a spirited and entertaining game. This game featured three lead changes, and the Canadiens needed three third-period goals to come back and win. Before this game, the Sabres were 24-1 when leading after two periods.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been in a lot of tight games,\u201d Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been in games where we\u2019ve been able to close it. I thought early on in the third we didn\u2019t manage the puck really well, probably was the thing that hurt us in the first five minutes. I thought after that, we started to manage it better. Just you got to be able to handle the puck under pressure, you got to be good on the walls. When the other team starts to put a lot of risk in their game, you got to make them pay.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said he didn\u2019t think his team managed the puck well against the Montreal Canadiens in Saturday\u2019s 4-2 loss. (Bill Wippert \/ NHLI via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The wall play Ruff was referring to came on Montreal\u2019s go-ahead goal in the third period. Sabres defenseman Michael Kesselring went back for the puck, but Kirby Dach managed to strip him of the puck and start a quick passing play that ended with Cole Caufield burying his second goal of the game. Kesselring didn\u2019t play another shift for the rest of the game after that goal. Neither did Konsta Helenius, who was the closest player in coverage on Caufield.<\/p>\n
Caufield, who now has 10 goals and 16 points in 18 career games against the Sabres, also scored the game-tying goal in the third period, re-directing a crossing pass and beating goalie Alex Lyon.<\/p>\n
The Sabres out-chanced the Canadiens 42-21 and had a 22-11 advantage in high-danger chances. But as Ruff pointed out after the game, it was \u201ca matter of inches.\u201d The games that matter typically are. And for the Sabres, those games continue next week with matchups against the Panthers, Lightning and Penguins before the Olympic break.<\/p>\n
\u201cImportant games now coming up,\u201d Dahlin said. \u201cIf we want to show we\u2019re a really good team, we better win these ones. These are the type of games you can see if you\u2019re a good team or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
1. Dahlin noted that the matchups against the Canadiens have come down to special teams. Montreal went 1-for-3 on the power play, while the Sabres went 1-for-4. The Canadiens have the seventh best power play in the NHL and opened the scoring with a Juraj Slafkovsky goal on the man advantage. The Sabres had a big chance on the power play late in the third but narrowly missed on a few chances that could have evened the game.<\/p>\n
2. Owen Power scored a big goal for the Sabres early in this game to even the score 1-1. Buffalo also had an 18-9 advantage in scoring chances during Power\u2019s five-on-five minutes. The Sabres were controlling play when he was on the ice, as has been the case for the last few months. His offensive production is down this season, but he got rewarded with a goal on Saturday.<\/p>\n
3. Injury updates: Jordan Greenway didn\u2019t play in this game despite taking warm-ups. He\u2019s going to get another opinion on his core muscle injury on Monday. He\u2019s already had two hernia surgeries dating back to last season but still hasn\u2019t been able to work his way back to 100 percent. Meanwhile, defenseman Jacob Bryson and center Josh Norris were both on the ice for Buffalo\u2019s morning skate on Saturday. Bryson has a chance to be available in Florida. The team is going to evaluate Norris after practice on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 After the Montreal Canadiens beat the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night, Montreal captain Nick Suzuki…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1809,1787,385,99],"class_list":["post-443149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}