One minute the Buffalo Sabres were getting booed, reviewed and rattled inside Bell Centre — three hours later, they were walking out with their season very much alive.
The Buffalo Sabres responded to mounting pressure Tuesday night with arguably their grittiest performance of the postseason, defeating the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 in a chaotic, emotionally draining Game 4 that somehow felt longer and heavier than the final score suggested.
There were bizarre bounces. Endless penalties. Controversial reviews. Momentum swings violent enough to flip the building in seconds. And in the middle of all of it stood Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who hadn’t started a game in nearly three weeks and suddenly looked like a man refusing to let Buffalo’s season spiral away.
By the end of the night, the series was tied 2-2 — and the Sabres had rediscovered something that looked a lot like themselves.
“Our belief never wavered,” Zach Benson told NHL.com.
“I don’t think there’s ever been wavering confidence in our group all season,” echoed Tage Thompson. “From Day 1, we had people doubting us and counting us out. It’s all these guys inside this room, our staff, that’s the only opinions that matter in here, and we all believe in each other.”
Chaos Nearly Buried Buffalo Early
The opening period felt less like playoff hockey and more like survival.
Buffalo stormed out of the gate with the urgency of a desperate team. Mattias Samuelsson opened the scoring after the Sabres overwhelmed Montreal early, silencing the Bell Centre crowd before it fully settled into the game.
Moments later, it appeared Buffalo had grabbed complete control.
A lengthy video review confirmed that Jack Quinn had extended the lead after jamming the puck through goaltender Jakub Dobes near the crease. The Sabres celebrated. The Canadiens challenged. Then came another review — one that drained nearly all the oxygen from the building.
The goal was overturned for goalie interference.
The delay stretched endlessly. Buffalo’s momentum evaporated. The Bell Centre came roaring back to life. And suddenly, the game flipped.
Alex Newhook capitalized shortly after to tie the game before Cole Caufield buried a late power-play goal to send Montreal into intermission ahead 2-1 despite Buffalo controlling large stretches of play.
For a team that lost composure badly in Game 3, the situation felt dangerous.
Instead, the Sabres steadied themselves.
“We learned our lesson,” said Thompson, “and in a similar situation coming into the first intermission, did a way better job regrouping, just calming ourselves back down. I thought we played a great game.”
“There was a lot of elements that went the other way,” added coach Lindy Ruff. “The review where we get the goal, the review where they take it away. Which I totally disagree with, just for the fact that Dobes always is swinging his stick. He initiated the contact with (Konsta) Helenius with his stick coming across the crease.”
Luukkonen Slammed The Door Shut
The equalizer arrived in the strangest possible fashion.
During a second-period power play, Thompson dumped the puck into the offensive zone from near center ice. The puck ricocheted violently off the end boards, bounced directly toward the crease and somehow slipped past Dobes inside the post.
Bell Centre groaned. Thompson could barely believe it himself.
The bizarre goal tied the game, but it also reignited Buffalo’s confidence.
From there, the Sabres began playing with conviction again. Their power play — lifeless for most of the opening round — suddenly looked dangerous. Early in the third period, Peyton Krebs drew a penalty that opened the door for Benson, who calmly found soft ice in the slot before finishing off a slick passing sequence for the eventual game winner on his 21st birthday.
“We’ve talked about our power play being good in key moments. That’s what we did: We went out there, we executed,” said Benson, who turned 21 on Tuesday and is up to four goals these playoffs. “Heck of a slip pass by [Josh Doan], and my job was pretty easy from there, just putting it in the net.”
Joked Thompson: “I don’t know if being 21 makes him an adult, but it’s exciting. … No better way to celebrate Benny’s birthday than getting the game winner.”
What followed was pure desperation hockey.
Buffalo blocked everything.
Shots ricocheted off legs, gloves, hips and sticks as the Sabres collapsed around their net in waves during the final minutes. Samuelsson was everywhere, finishing with six blocked shots, six hits and massive minutes against Montreal’s top players.
“He was a beast,” Ruff said.
“Those are things that don’t look pretty on TV or to fans watching,” Thompson said of the blocks, “but that stuff on the bench gets us just as jacked as scoring a goal.”
And whenever Montreal managed to break through the layers in front, Luukkonen erased the chance.
The Finnish goaltender turned aside 28 shots overall and was especially brilliant late, surviving a furious Canadiens push that threatened to overwhelm Buffalo’s defense. His sprawling saves on Caufield midway through the game may have ultimately preserved the entire night.
“He’s a dog,” Benson said. “We had all the confidence in the world in him – all of our goalies. Upie made so many big saves tonight that we really needed in key moments. All the credit goes to him. He was the biggest reason why we walked out of this building with a win.”
After getting embarrassed in Games 2 and 3, the Sabres could have unraveled completely inside one of hockey’s loudest buildings.
Instead, they absorbed every punch, survived every bounce and dragged this series back to even.
And suddenly, all the pressure has shifted again.
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