The Montreal Canadiens suffered a humiliating loss at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night, but they have hopefully learned another valuable lesson.
Just over two weeks after failing to give the Tampa Bay Lightning the coup de grace in Game 6 of their first-round series at the Bell Centre, the Montreal Canadiens had an opportunity to show that they had learned their lesson.
After overcoming a 3-2 deficit in Game 5 on Thursday night, the Habs had the Buffalo Sabres on the ropes and just needed to land one final blow to book their ticket to the Conference Final for the first time since 2021, but it was the Sabres who threw more punches, winning 8-3.
For this first Saturday night of playoff hockey in Montreal, the Sainte-Flanelle chose Larry Robinson as the torchbearer to light up an already fired-up Bell Centre.
As has often been the case in this series, the Tricolore were slow out of the gate, and the visitors took the lead just 32 seconds in. While Montreal stormed back from behind with three straight goals on three straight shots on Alex Lyon, once Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen replaced him, the Canadiens were unable to generate much of anything.
The young Habs have had their fair share of adversity in these playoffs, coming back from behind often and even winning an elimination game by taking fewer than 10 shots on goal. They’ve played with fire, but they’ve never been burnt until Saturday night.
Despite giving up the first goal, the Canadiens looked in full control mid-way through the first period with a two-goal, 3-1 lead, and then, they took their foot off the pedal, almost as if they believed they were in the driver’s seat and had done enough to win the game.
The Sabres felt it and jammed their foot in the door of opportunity that opened for them. Some could claim the Game 6 loss was due to overconfidence, but the Habs refuse to let that be the narrative.
“No, I don’t think we’ve been overconfident,” said defenseman Noah Dobson. “We know we’ve got to play our game each night to have a chance, and if we don’t do that, we’ve seen what happens tonight. I think we’re just confident that when we play our game, it gives us the best chance to win, and we’ve got to do that on Monday.”
The building was rocking, and perhaps the young group felt like they could cruise to the win, lifted by the crowd’s reaction to their three goals in the first frame.
“I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves,” said veteran defender Mike Matheson. “To say that it makes it more difficult at home than on the road, I don’t really know. I feel like we’ve played a lot of good hockey this year at home... We didn’t have our A-game tonight; we need to reset and bring it on Monday.”
Bench boss Martin St-Louis had his own theory to explain why both teams are playing better on the road:
“I feel that both teams probably want the result badly for their fanbase when they’re at home and stuff... We wanted this for our fans, for us, we wanted this, but we didn’t play well,” said the five-year coach. “We’ll reset, go on the road and put our best foot forward.”
For a second series in a row, the Canadiens will play a do-or-die Game 7 on the road, and it will be interesting to see what they took away from their tight win over the Lightning two weeks ago.
Last season, the Canadiens learned what kind of hockey is played in the post-season; this time around, they are learning just how hard it is to put a team away. They’ve failed to close out both series when they had the opportunity to do so in Game 6.
On Monday night, they’ll have another chance to play a Game 7 the right way and to bounce forward, as their coach likes to say. Regardless of the result, they will have acquired experience that you can’t buy without competing in two rounds of intense playoff hockey that had to go the distance.
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