Advantage Habs.
After a shootout in Buffalo, the proverbial keys have been tossed in the Montreal Canadiens’ lap, as they sit in the metaphorical driver’s seat of the symbolic party bus headed for the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, North Carolina and the NHL Eastern Conference finals.
The Sabres scored first, but the Habs always had an answer and used a dominant second period to come from behind and pull ahead and win 6-3 and take a 3-2 series lead.
The Habs now need one win at home on Saturday night to book a date with the Carolina Hurricanes, who await them in the last round before the Stanley Cup finals.
Two-period firefight
Far from the cagey affair of prior games, both teams came out with guns blazing, ready and willing to shoot and score at the KeyBank Center in downtown Buffalo.
Two minutes in, Sabre Jason Zucker scored for an early lead that got the 19,000+ fans (minus the visible red sections) screaming. However, the home-team joy lasted just under five minutes.
Recently revived goal-scorer Cole Caufield answered at 6:31.
A goal from Josh Doan for Buffalo was cancelled by one from Montreal’s Alexandre Texier, which was followed by a Konsat Helenius goal for the home side.
Habs goalie Jakub Dobes spoke after the game about struggling in Game 4 and the first period of the fifth game.
“A couple tough bounces lately,” he said after the game. “One lesson I learned from today, I just gotta have better body language for the boys. Don’t let them know that I’m not feeling maybe my best.”
Buffalo’s lead would soon be a memory almost as distant as the Buffaslug jerseys from the 2006-10 era, as the Habs scored three unanswered in the second to go ahead 5-3.
Goals from Josh Anderson, Jake Evans and a power play snipe from Captain Nick Suzuki completed the comeback for the Habs.
The end of the second was the end of the night for Sabre goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, as the Finnish netminder could not find his Game 4 form.
‘Hockey gods decided’
Things didn’t start great for returning netminder Alex Lyon.
At long last, Habs rookie Russian Ivan Demidov scored a goal in the 2026 playoffs when he took a pass from Juraj Slafkovsky and scored on the power play three and a half minutes into the third period.
“I don’t know how to describe it, just cool to score, and I’m feeling good right now because of how many chances I had in other games and I didn’t score,” said Demidov after the game. “I just relieved the pressure from my back.”
It was the Calder Trophy nominee’s first goal of the playoffs and the end of the damage for Buffalo.
“Every game I had a 100 per cent chance of scoring,” he said. “This game, the hockey gods decided that I have to score.”
However, the Sabres’ offence was not able to get another puck past goalie Jakub Dobes, who ended the game with 33 saves.
Dobes spoke about a less-than-great first period and his team’s belief in him.
“They had my back, then I had their back, they had my back, back-and-forth, and we were just feeding off each other,” he said. “We took a little bit of a lead and hung onto it.”
Game 6 is on Saturday in Montreal with a seventh game in Buffalo, if necessary.