Sabres force a deciding Game 7 with an 8-3 stomping of the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre
The Buffalo Sabres appeared to be headed to the end of their magical run since mid-December, falling behind 3-1 midway through the first period and yanking starter Alex Lyon, but Buffalo rebounded with seven straight goals in an 8-3 thrashing of the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre on Saturday to force a deciding Game 7 in Buffalo on Monday.
The Sabres once again took an early lead and put the Habs on their heels, but Montreal rebounded with three goals on four shots on Alex Lyon, chasing Buffalo’s starter in favor of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. After replying with a power play by Jason Zucker, Zach Benson tied the game one minute into the middle frame, and Jack Quinn put the Sabres up for good midway through the second.
Jakub Dobes was pulled by Montreal for the first time in the playoffs, in a contest that saw Sabres team captain Rasmus Dahlin score five points (1 goal, 4 assists) and both Quinn and Tage Thompson score twice.
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Head coach Lindy Ruff spoke to the media on Sunday morning in Montreal, before the club boarded a flight for Buffalo.
Are you considering making some changes to the club’s routine to prepare yourself for Game 7?
We're still in that process, so, but we are going to try to change up the routine a little bit.
How do you prepare for something where the circumstances change like a Game 7?
I think you sometimes you just go with your gut. We've done some things that are different, even going into last night, and I think we'll do the same for for the next home game.
When you were switching up the lines, how many different combinations did it take to figure out where you landed?
Not a lot really, because we really felt that the Helenius line was going good, and we knew we just felt it's just a matter of time before they were going to put it in the back of the net, so really up front, just one or two pieces that we were shuffling back and forth, and we went back and looked at some of the lines earlier in the year, and then decided with that McLeod line, and then put (Tage Thompson) on the wing.
What was the difference with Thompson last night?
I can argue this a lot of times when I put him on the wing, it kind of frees him up a little bit, and he doesn't have to put a lot of energy into playing in his own end, which frees him up to get going the other way. He likes playing center, (but) there's times I like him on the wing. He's had a long run here at center ice, and but during the year, there was a couple games that even he played with Ostlund a little bit, but I think that was the difference.
10 minutes into the game yesterday, you're losing 3-1, the fact that your club bounced back from that. How much of a growth moment was that?
The great part about that 10 minutes is I liked the way we were playing, a shot went in off a face-off, and all of a sudden they got a power play goal, but to that point, we were outplaying, outshooting, and outskating them. Just felt I had to make a goalie change and move on. But the whole year, this team, there's been no quit. Have we played some bad games in the playoffs? Yeah, we've played some games we'd like to have back. I think that's been part of our growth. We use that as a lesson, and we move on.
How do you make game seven like another game, or is that even possible?
The goal is to make Game 7 like Game 6, move the puck quick, play with a lot of pace, keep our feet moving in the offensive zone, and close real quickly in a defensive zone, that's our recipe.
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