MONTREAL — The Montreal Canadiens, to a man, were rather pleased with their overall performance for most of Tuesday’s playoff game against the Buffalo Sabres at the Bell Centre.
Nevertheless, when the final horn sounded, it was the Sabres emerging with a 3-2 win, tying the second-round, best-of-seven series at 2-2.
“We had our chances,” said Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis. “I think we had 75 attempted shots. If you watch the Canadiens, it’s rare we’re going to hit those numbers. Apart from the start, it’s tough not to like this game.”
Montreal conceded an early opening goal for the second straight game on home ice, courtesy of a Mattias Samuelsson marker off the rush 6:32 into the first period.
That lead was nearly doubled less than two minutes later thanks to Sabres forward Jack Quinn. The initial video review on the play deemed Quinn’s goal to be a good one, with Canadiens netminder Jakub Dobes snagging the puck with his glove, albeit past the goal line.
St. Louis immediately contested the officials’ decision, contending that Sabres rookie Konsta Helenius interfered with Dobes before the puck crossing the goal line. The referees agreed with the Montreal bench boss, reversing their original call to hold the Sabres lead to a single goal.
St. Louis was confident in his decision to challenge the ruling on the ice, also seeing it as a way to spark his then-sluggish squad.
“Our start, to that point, wasn’t great,” admitted St. Louis. “I look at it emotionally. If we win the challenge, it gives us a boost. That’s what happened. If you lose the challenge, you need a big kill and sometimes, that can give you momentum, too. Win or lose, it would have given us an opportunity to get momentum.”
Just over two minutes later, Alex Newhook scored his team-leading sixth goal of the playoffs and fifth of the series to draw his club even.
Cole Caufield would also score his third power-play goal of the post-season with 12.2 seconds remaining in the first period to give Montreal a 2-1 lead heading into the locker room.
It would be the only power-play goal the Canadiens would score across seven such opportunities throughout the game.
Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki says it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
“It was just the end play that didn’t go in the net,” said Suzuki. “It felt like we were breaking them down, getting our looks, the ones we were searching for. I hit the post, I think Slaf (Juraj Slafkovsky) missed a couple backdoor plays.
“I don’t think we got to go to the drawing board on the power play. We just got to be able to finish.”
Kaiden Guhle agreed with his captain.
“I felt like our power play was moving the puck well and had chances,” said Guhle. “We just couldn’t capitalize. Sometimes, that happens in games.”
Montreal outshot Buffalo 22-10 from the second period onward. However, it was Buffalo scoring a pair of goals, including the equalizer coming off a centre-ice dump-in by Sabres forward Tage Thompson that took an unlucky bounce off the corner door, Dobes’ pad and in.
“It sucks, honestly,” said Caufield. “I thought we played a pretty good game. There’s some things that we can always get better at, but to see a fluke goal like that go in, it’s obviously not the bounce you want.”
Montreal now finds itself in the same position the squad faced during their first-round matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning, having split the opening four games of each series.
Tasked with winning two of the next three games, the Canadiens remain undaunted.
“We knew we had to go to Buffalo anyway,” said Suzuki “We’re a good road team. We’ve shown that all year.”
Jake Evans also believes in his team’s ability to rebound.
“We always bounce back,” said Evans. “We believe in and have a lot of confidence in each other.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2026.
Jordan Stoopler, The Canadian Press
