Buffalo waited 15 years to host a Game 7 like this again, only to watch its dream season end in stunned silence as the Montreal Canadiens escaped KeyBank Center with a heartbreaking 3-2 overtime victory Monday night.
Alex Newhook buried the winner 11:22 into overtime as the Canadiens survived another punishing playoff battle, eliminating the Buffalo Sabres in dramatic fashion and punching their ticket to the Eastern Conference Final against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Canadiens, now an astonishing 6-0 following losses in these playoffs, will open the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday in Raleigh against a Carolina team that still hasn’t tasted defeat this postseason.
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For nearly three hours, the game felt like a tug-of-war between Buffalo’s relentless pressure and Montreal’s refusal to crack.
Phillip Danault and Zachary Bolduc scored in regulation for the Canadiens, who once again leaned on resilience more than dominance. Montreal has now played 14 playoff games in 30 days, yet somehow continues to look composed in the moments where lesser teams unravel.
The early portion of Game 7 belonged to Montreal. The Canadiens accomplished the most important task imaginable for a road team facing elimination: silence the building before the crowd could fully ignite.
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Danault opened the scoring midway through the first period after a strong forecheck forced a Buffalo turnover deep in its own zone. Later in the frame, Bolduc capitalized on the power play to stretch the lead to 2-0, abruptly draining the energy from a nervous KeyBank Center crowd.
But the Sabres never stopped pushing.
Buffalo tilted the ice for long stretches of the second period, overwhelming Montreal territorially and forcing Jakub Dobeš into a series of game-saving stops. Jordan Greenway finally cut the deficit in half on a deflection goal after wave after wave of Sabres pressure, and by the time the third period arrived, momentum had fully shifted.
When Rasmus Dahlin blasted home the tying goal just over six minutes into the third, the arena erupted back to life and the Canadiens suddenly looked vulnerable again.
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They just didn’t stay vulnerable for long.
There was legitimate uncertainty surrounding Jakub Dobeš entering the game after he was pulled in Game 6 following a six-goal collapse.
Instead of folding under that pressure, the rookie netminder delivered another defining postseason performance.
Dobeš turned aside 37 shots and repeatedly rescued Montreal during Buffalo’s most dangerous stretches. His sprawling second-period robbery on Tage Thompson from point-blank range may have been the save that ultimately changed the outcome of the series.
While Buffalo controlled much of the possession battle and generated extended offensive-zone pressure, Dobeš consistently prevented the game from spiraling away from Montreal.
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At the other end, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was sharp as well, stopping 22 shots and keeping the Sabres alive with multiple breakaway saves and several key stops on Cole Caufield early in the game. Both goaltenders entered the night carrying questions. Both answered them emphatically.
But only one got the final save.
The cruelty of Game 7 hockey is that one bounce can erase months of progress.
For Buffalo, the loss will sting deeply because this season represented so much more than one playoff run. The Sabres captured the Atlantic Division title, snapped a 15-year postseason drought, and reintroduced meaningful spring hockey to a city desperate for it.
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Still, the ending will linger.
The Sabres finished just 2-5 at home during the playoffs, an almost impossible statistic to explain considering how dominant they looked on the road throughout the postseason. Across this series, the visiting team won five of seven games, further emphasizing how strange and volatile the matchup became.
Dahlin was magnificent in defeat, continuing a postseason that felt like a national arrival for the Buffalo captain. After recording five points in Game 6, he dominated stretches of Game 7 as well, driving play whenever he stepped on the ice and delivering the third-period equalizer that briefly seemed destined to become a franchise-defining moment.
Instead, it became another painful chapter in Buffalo’s long postseason history.
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Now difficult offseason questions await the organization. Head coach Lindy Ruff is without a contract beyond this season, while top-six winger Alex Tuch is also approaching an uncertain future.
Meanwhile, the Canadiens keep moving.
Montreal entered the playoffs as the youngest team in the field. Now, after surviving consecutive seven-game wars, the youngest team to reach the conference final since the 1993 Canadiens is suddenly four wins away from the Stanley Cup Final.
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