since the 1993 Canadiens<\/a>, will need to rely on that road-warrior success to find a way to upset the Canes, who have won all eight of their games this postseason, in the next round.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019ve said it for a long time: We knew something was brewing in here and how special this group is and how tight we are,\u201d Habs winger Josh Anderson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working hard to build what we got going on right now. Sometimes you got to go through those growing pains to be successful. It\u2019s just nice to do this together and have an opportunity to move on to the next round. There\u2019s four left now. It\u2019s pretty exciting. And we\u2019re not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the heartbreaking Game 7 loss at home, the Sabres can look back on a very successful season, winning the Atlantic Division and finally making the postseason for the first time in 15 years. They\u2019ve got some big decisions looming: Ruff is on an expiring deal, as is top-six winger Alex Tuch.<\/p>\n
Canadiens finally get a good start<\/p>\n
The Canadiens scored first for only the second time in the series, and in so doing accomplished the No. 1 goal of any team playing a Game 7 on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cTry to take the crowd out of it early,\u201d Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle said Monday morning. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be loud in there, their building\u2019s going pretty good. Just keep it simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guhle played a primary role in that simplicity early on for Montreal. Anderson had an excellent forecheck to force Sabres defenseman Bowen Byram into a turnover deep in the Buffalo zone, popping the puck free for Alexandre Texier, who found Guhle sneaking down from the point.<\/p>\n
Once he got the puck, Guhle did not attempt anything complicated. He threw the puck toward the net, where it struck Danault\u2019s skate and beat Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen at 4:30 of the first period.<\/p>\n
Once the Canadiens made it 2-0 with a power-play goal from Bolduc 10 minutes later, the KeyBank Center crowd was effectively taken out of it as a nervous energy took over the building.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens didn\u2019t dominate the start of the game \u2014 far from it, in fact \u2014 but just getting that early lead created the conditions they were looking for early on.<\/p>\n
Of course, as soon as Dahlin tied it at 6:27 of the third, those fans were right back in it. \u2014 Arpon Basu, Canadiens writer<\/p>\n
Sabres flip game in second<\/p>\n
Through two periods, the Sabres had a 56-26 advantage in shot attempts at all strengths and a 28-17 advantage in five-on-five scoring chances. The Canadiens seemed content to give them outside ice and try to take away the dangerous areas. If not for a few highlight-reel saves from Dobe\u0161, the Sabres could have been leading after two periods.<\/p>\n
At the end of the second period, Dobe\u0161 stopped a Thompson wrist shot from point-blank range. Before that, he made a pair of saves on Alex Tuch. In the second period alone, the Sabres had a 19-8 advantage in scoring chances. That\u2019s when they got their first goal of the game, when Samuelsson\u2019s shot deflected off Greenway and in. But the work was done to turn the game before that. \u2014 Matthew Fairburn, Sabres writer<\/p>\n
Sabres lean on Dahlin<\/p>\n
By midway through the third period, the Sabres had a 33-12 advantage in shot attempts and 15-6 advantage in scoring chances during Dahlin\u2019s five-on-five minutes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s only fitting that the tying goal in the third period came off his stick because he was all over the ice in this game. His shot on the goal was the type of decisive, quick release that has made him one of the league\u2019s most dangerous offensive defensemen.<\/p>\n
Dahlin had a five-point night with his team facing elimination in Game 6 and matched that level of play in Game 7. Nobody on this team has been waiting longer to play in these moments than Dahlin, and he saved his best stuff for the biggest moments of Buffalo\u2019s season. \u2014 Fairburn<\/p>\n
Both goalies overcome doubt<\/p>\n
There was a cloud of doubt surrounding both Dobe\u0161 and Luukkonen entering Game 7.<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161 was pulled for the first time in these playoffs after giving up six goals in Game 6, while Luukkonen has not exactly been a model of consistency this season. But both goalies answered the bell for their teams and gave them a chance to win this game.<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161 was particularly strong during the Sabres\u2019 second-period push, and Luukkonen stopped both Texier and Anderson on breakaways while also making back-to-back saves on Cole Caufield in the first to keep the Canadiens\u2019 lead at 2-0.<\/p>\n
Dobe\u0161 finished with 37 saves, and Luukkonen had 22 for the Sabres. \u2014 Basu<\/p>\n
Tried and true formula?<\/p>\n
Guhle was talking Monday morning about how his team can lean on its experience in Game 7 against the Lightning in this game.<\/p>\n
Then it seemed as though he suddenly realized what that Game 7 in Tampa was actually like.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we didn\u2019t probably play our best,\u201d Guhle said, \u201cbut Dobie played great for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
That Game 7 experience that seemed to be an advantage for the Canadiens didn\u2019t quite turn out that way. Instead, they did their best to replicate that experience.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens beat the Lightning in that game despite putting up only nine shots on goal, an NHL record-low for a win in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This wasn\u2019t quite that, but once the Canadiens went up 2-0 in the first, they seemed to sit back in a shell, content to defend and try to keep the Sabres to the outside while they possessed the puck in their zone for shift after shift.<\/p>\n
The Sabres made them pay for it in the second period and erased that lead early in the third. And once the game was tied, the Canadiens went back to attacking. \u2014 Basu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Canada\u2019s team is headed to the Eastern Conference finals. Alex Newhook scored 11:22 into overtime…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1809,1787,385,99],"class_list":["post-651782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651782","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=651782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}