After two emphatic wins over the Buffalo Sabres, the Montreal Canadiens were hosting the fourth game of the series on Tuesday night with an opportunity to take a stranglehold on the series with a 3-1 win. Despite telling the press that the loss wasn’t on Alex Lyon on Tuesday, Lindy Ruff opted to bring Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen back between the posts, despite his last game dating back to April 21 and the fact that he allowed seven goals on 40 shots against the Boston Bruins.
Clearly looking for both a spark and some experience, Ruff also scratched Logan Stanley for Luke Schenn and Sam Carrick (who might still have been feeling the effects of that Xhekaj punch) for Konsta Helenius. Meanwhile, Martin St-Louis opted to stay the course, which was hardly surprising given his team’s performance in the last two games.
Canadiens: It Doesn’t Happen To Every Guy, And It Is A Big Deal
Canadiens’ Dach Has Flipped The Script
Xhekaj And Malenstyn Fined, Expect More Bad Blood
After the last game, Tage Thompson told the media that the crowd noise made it hard to communicate, and those words didn’t fall on deaf ears, judging by how electric the atmosphere once more was in the Bell Centre. This time around, though, it didn’t make a difference as the Sabres got a 3-2 win to regain home-ice advantage.
Weathering The Storm
Unsurprisingly, the Sabres came out with the energy of a team that doesn’t want to go down 3-1 in a series. They looked like the faster side and completely dominated the start of the game, scoring within the first 7 minutes. They then thought they had a second goal less than two minutes later when Jakub Dobes gloved a shot in the net, but the goal was eventually waved off for goaltender interference on an astute challenge by St-Louis.
That 10-minute video review break helped the Canadiens shake off the Sabres’ dominant start, and they found their way back into the game from there. Alex Newhook scored the equalizer before Cole Caufield, who still can’t score at even strength, found the back of the net on the power play with seconds left in the period. A real gut-punch to the Sabres, who had just played their best period of hockey and still went back to the room trailing 2-1.
After the game, St-Louis spoke about his team’s start:
Our start was not good, but I feel like after the goal was disallowed, you know, the challenge? I feel like we took the game over from that point on. Lots of good stuff from that point on. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but I liked our game.
–
Slafkovsky’s Bad Habits
Occasionally, Juraj Slafkovsky has games in which he tries to do too much and sprinkles no-look back passes into his play. That was the case on Tuesday night; there was no harm done, but he really needs to take unnecessary risks outside of his game, especially when there’s a better and easier play available.
He also struggled to maintain puck possession on the power play a few times. He was either getting pinned on the boards or skating too close to the blue line, being forced to take the puck out. That forced the Canadiens to retreat to the defensive zone and eased the pressure on the Sabres a few times, while also killing the momentum the man-advantage was building.
A Game Of Inches
It’s often said that hockey is a game of inches, and that certainly rang true tonight. Buffalo got a big break when Tage Thompson was able to score the equalizer by bouncing the puck off the Zamboni exit door before it bounced off Dobes and in. A couple of inches further up on the boards, and that puck doesn’t go to the net the way it did. When the coach was asked about that play and his team’s reaction to it, he said:
We played a darn good second frame, so I can’t say that the bounce shook us up. […] We talk about it [the risk of bounces in that corner], but it’s funny, we talked about it, and once he [Dobes] got caught because he came out of his net, so he doesn’t go out anymore, but I think tonight, if he had gone out, he wouldn’t have been caught.
The Gamble Paid Off
Ruff’s decision to give the net to Luukkonen paid off in the end. The Finnish netminder was on point tonight; he made quite a few big saves, including a pair on the penalty kill off Caufield's one-timers. In the final frame, as the Habs were attacking relentlessly to try and find an equalizer, he stopped all 12 shots he faced. There’s no doubt that he will be back in the net for Game 5.
Despite the loss, St-Louis didn’t seem worried at all:
We’re really confident; we had our chances. I think we had 75 attempts on net. If people watch the Canadiens, they’ll know it’s rare that we get that kind of number. As I said, aside from the start, it’s hard not to like that game.
–
The Canadiens find themselves in familiar territory since they also failed to capitalize on their 2-1 lead in the first round. The series will now return to Buffalo, where Game 5 will be played on Thursday at 7:00 PM.
Follow Karine on X @KarineHains Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains.
Bookmark The Hockey News Canadiens' page for all the news and happenings around the Canadiens.
Join the discussion by signing up to the Canadiens' roundtable on The Hockey News.
Subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here.
