The Montreal Canadiens find themselves in a familiar situation.
The Canadiens, after all, dropped a 3-2 decision in Game 4 of their second straight series to once again reduce a once-best-of-seven set to a best-of-three. And Montreal’s opponent once again has home-ice advantage to boot.
The Canadiens will look to rebound from Tuesday’s setback when they visit the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday for Game 5 of the Eastern Conference second-round series. Like their first-round set against the Tampa Bay Lightning, this one is tied at two wins apiece.
“We’re still a confident group. Nothing changes for us,” defenseman Kaiden Guhle said, per the Montreal Gazette. “We played well. There’s no point hanging our heads. Go to Buffalo and try to take one. It’s playoff hockey. You can’t look in the past.”
True, but the narrative going into Game 5 likely would’ve been different had the Canadiens converted more on the power play. They were just 1-for-7 with the man advantage, as opposed to the Sabres going 2-for-4.
“Special teams played a huge part,” Montreal head coach Martin St. Louis said. “It’s hard to believe that we only got one goal on the power play because I felt like we had a lot of chances. You’ve got to tip your cap to the goalie (Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen), he played a good game.”
Luukkonen turned aside 28 shots in his return to the crease, including a pair of sterling stops on Cole Caufield in the second period.
“Those are the saves that everybody’s up on the bench,” Buffalo head coach Lindy Ruff said. “They’re game-changers.
“It is the time of year where you need big saves. You’d say our penalty killing was good, but a big part of our penalty killing was getting a big save at a big time. And he gave us, I would probably say three or four on the ‘PK’ at big times.”
It was Luukkonen’s first game back after he had been benched in favor of Alex Lyon when he gave up four goals on 20 shots in Game 2 of the first-round series versus the Boston Bruins.
Buffalo’s Zach Benson celebrated his 21st birthday by scoring what became the game-winning goal 4:41 into the third period.
Tage Thompson collected a goal and an assist on Tuesday, and Josh Doan set up a pair of tallies to carry a five-game assist streak into Game 5.
“You realize how important home-ice advantage can be, and we can’t be throwing away games at home,” Doan said.
Should the Sabres wish to make their fans happy, they’d be wise to clamp down on Alex Newhook. He has five goals in his last three games.
Caufield has tallied in back-to-back contests for the Canadiens, who take a 4-2 road record in these playoffs on their trek to Western New York.
As for Ruff, he’s just keeping it simple.
“You’ve gotta focus on one game. Our motto the whole year has been just one more,” Ruff said. “… We win one more game and then pressure and momentum shift again. We go back to our building, we know how important this next game is.”
