Sabres find life in their power-play in Game 1 win over Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens, Canada’s last hope for its first Stanley Cup in 33 years, managed to get away from the rope-a-dope strategy that secured their first-round playoff win. Despite winning on the shot count this time with a 28-16 edge, the Canadiens were decidedly second best on the scoreboard Wednesday as the Buffalo Sabres doubled them up 4-2 to take Game 1 in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semi-final.

With the victory, Buffalo has now beaten Montreal in five straight playoff meetings, with the Canadiens’ last victory over the Sabres coming in 1993, on its way to the team’s 24th championship.

Despite a 28-year gap between playoff meetings for these two franchises – long-time adversaries since the days of the old Adams Division – any lingering bad blood didn’t take long to resurface in their eighth postseason encounter. In a postseason-crazy city like Buffalo, still revelling after its opening-round win over the Boston Bruins and enjoying every minute of its playoff renaissance, it started hours before the opening puck drop.

“Congratulations for making it over the border, Canadians,” shouted one agitator with a microphone outside the arena. “Welcome to Buffalo.”

While there were plenty of Canadiens jerseys proudly on display – from long lamented legends such as Jean Bélieveau to current starlets like Ivan Demidov – another was victim to that most peculiarly Buffalo tradition, as a fan dressed in full goaltender gear body-slammed a tricolore-wearing CPR mannequin through a folding table.

Canadians get behind the Canadiens in their Stanley Cup bid

But while physicality and aggression will always be a necessary byproduct of playoff hockey – and sometimes cross-border relations – the 2026 versions of the Sabres and Canadiens are two teams built on fleet forwards and highly skilled, mobile defencemen. Both finished in the top-seven in regular-season goals this season, and that offence didn’t take long to spring into life.

After firing a warning shot – literally – at Montreal goaltender Jakub Dobes, who had his helmet knocked off in the process after it snapped a buckle, the Sabres jumped into the lead with less than five minutes on the clock.

Montreal’s star blueliner Lane Hutson, who had six points through the opening seven games, lost an edge near centre ice, allowing Zach Benson to surge over the blueline unchallenged, before sliding a pass to Josh Doan on the edge of the crease for his second goal of the playoffs.

That lead doubled two-thirds of the way through the period with the Sabres wheeling out their glacially cold power play after Nick Suzuki was called for tripping Bowen Byram. With the newly announced Selke Trophy nominee in the box, Ryan McLeod was allowed to snipe from an acute angle, Benson again the provider with a cross-crease pass, giving Buffalo only its second power-play goal in 26 opportunities this postseason.

Just as it looked like Montreal would head to the dressing room down a pair, a late penalty to Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin for interference gave the Habs a special-teams opportunity of their own.

The captain duly delivered with 43.4 seconds left in the first period, Suzuki firing home off a pass from Juraj Slafkovsky for his second goal – and seventh point – of the playoffs. The shot was Montreal’s 10th of the period – or, to put it another way, one more than it had managed in a full 60 minutes of Sunday’s Game 7 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

However, any momentum that the 24-time Stanley Cup winners were hoping to gain was quickly snuffed out in the second period.

The Atlantic Division-champion Sabres – who had surged to the crown with a 30-point improvement year over year – broke the game open with goals from Jordan Greenway and then Bowen Byram on the power play before the 11-minute mark had elapsed. Byram’s goal – his fourth of the playoffs – came on the Sabres’ ninth shot of the game, as Dobes, who had saved 28 of 29 shots in eliminating Tampa, managed just 12 saves on 16 shots.

Given that the Canadiens had never trailed by more than a goal during their seven-game opening round against the Lightning, Martin St. Louis’s team was in an unfamiliar position in the unfriendly confines of KeyBank Center.

But with their resilience under the microscope – Buffalo could seemingly have capitalized further but twice hit the post instead – Montreal responded. Kirby Dach followed up on his own rebound, and found the net behind Alex Lyon, who finished with 26 saves on 28 shots.

With Game 1 in the books, the two teams will now turn their attention to Friday’s Game 2 in Buffalo.