BUFFALO, N.Y. — One of these teams is not like the others, and we’re referring to the ones that knocked off the Buffalo Sabres in overtime of Game 7 Monday.
How the Montreal Canadiens did it was not quite as miraculous as how they beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of Round 1, but there was some pixie dust sprinkled all over this one too.
For the Canadiens had a two-goal lead they squandered. They defended spectacularly well through the first period to earn it, only to find themselves defending far too much through the second and the third.
And after Jakub Dobes made some heroic saves in overtime on Zach Benson and Tage Thompson, Alex Newhook stormed down the ice, received a lead pass from Alex Carrier, slowed himself down for Jake Evans to drive the net, and then used Rasmus Dahlin as a screen to take the shot that knuckled past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for his second Game-7-winning goal of these playoffs.
Of this one, Newhook said the main thing he felt was “a little bit more relief” because unlike the one in Tampa, which he scored to make it 2-1 Canadiens with 9:57 to play in the third period, it immediately ended the game.
It also propelled the Canadiens to the Eastern Conference Final, making them the only team of the four left standing to have not won its division this season.
The Colorado Avalanche, a veteran team in search of its first Cup since Newhook won with them as a rookie in 2022, won theirs by nine points. They’re facing a Vegas Golden Knights team that won the year after, a team that emerged as the winner of the pillow fight — as Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid famously coined it in March — that was this season’s Pacific Division.
Meanwhile, the Carolina Hurricanes, who won the Metropolitan Division by 15 points, have been cooling their heels for the last 10 days after completing their second sweep of these playoffs. This is their fourth consecutive appearance in the Eastern Conference Final.
And then you have these Canadiens, who beat the 50-win, Atlantic Division champion Sabres after dispatching the veteran, 106-point Lightning. At 25.8 years old on average, they are the youngest team to make it this far in the playoffs since the 1993 Stanley Cup champion Canadiens did it.
These Canadiens were born in the flames of a spectacular burnout following an appearance in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, and their journey to here will be a case study for all teams pondering the pain of a rebuild.
Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki called it “a long journey” roughly 30 minutes after Newhook scored the winning goal Monday, but some in the hockey world would consider it among the shortest ever for a team that bottomed out to embark on what they thought would be a non-linear path to any type of triumph.
“There’s been a lot of different steps,” said Suzuki, who then noted how they’ve actually been quite linear.
“We traded for Newy, we traded for (Kirby Dach),” Suzuki said, though the record states those moves were made in reverse order. “We drafted really well. A lot of studs through the draft that had an impact right away, so that really put our process further in motion. And ever since (coach) Marty (St. Louis) came (in February 2022), we had a belief we could be a really good team really quickly, and guys have really bought into how we play and everything that Marty preaches. It’s really cool to be in this situation this fast, being such a young team. We’re just having a lot of fun and we just want to keep the journey going.”
It looked like it might stop dead soon after Dahlin scored to make it 2-2 with 13:33 to go in the third period of Monday’s game.
Early goals from Phillip Danault and Zachary Bolduc didn’t appear as though they’d hold up as the ice tilted heavily towards Dobes in the second period.
After Mattias Samuelsson banked one off Jordan Greenway to get the Sabres on the board 13:19 into that frame, the waves of pressure came crashing down on the Canadiens.
That’s when Dobes kept his team from drowning.
“I was just doing my job,” he said. “Their fans like to chant my name, so I like that, too. Thanks for that. That was giving me fire because I like when you’re the villain when you’re in this situation.”
Dobes stole away sure goals from Alex Tuch and Thompson in the final minute of the second period, and he made 16 more saves before Newhook scored to make it 3-2 Montreal.
In between, Josh Anderson missed the second of two breakaways and pinged the cross bar.
Emotions swung wildly on every rush, as pucks got nervously bobbled by both teams, and then Buffalo made the final mistake.
“It hurts,” said Sabres coach Lindy Ruff. “For the team, it hurts. That pain will go away, but I won’t let this one game define the season we had.”
It was a remarkable one, which started about as disastrously as the 14 playoff-less ones that preceded it. Ruff wanted them to “just bleeping go,” and they did, running over nearly everyone in the league from Dec. 9 onward.
That’s when they notched the first of 10 wins in a row, which they followed up with a league-leading 29 over the final 43 games of the season.
They’d have crushed the Boston Bruins in less than six games if not for goaltender Jeremy Swayman, and they crushed the Canadiens 8-3 in Game 6 before almost extinguishing them in Game 7.
“Game 7 is about finding a way,” said St. Louis, “and that’s what we did.”
For the second time of these playoffs. For the first time in overtime on the road in a Game 7 in the team’s 117-year history.
Who’d have thought it would be this version of the Canadiens?
They were just learning how to play through the 2022-23 season. In 2023-24, we saw them play — and lose — the most one-goal games in the NHL. They came into 2024-25 just looking to be in the mix and then went on an unforeseeable run post-4 Nations Face-Off to the playoffs before getting run over by the Washington Capitals in five games. And now, youth be damned, they’re in the final four.
Youth was a baked-in excuse to lean on at any point over 96 games this season, but St. Louis refused to let the Canadiens do that.
“It’s easy to just use the age as a crutch,” he said. “Two years ago, we know that we lacked experience. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t advance and mature. So, I feel like the process that we have in place, the environment, and the mindset, I think it’s allowed us to grow no matter what, how old we are.”
It’s been a massive spurt for the Canadiens over the last month.
“What we’re going through right now, you can’t buy that,” said St. Louis. “It’s amazing. I’m so happy for the players to live that. It’s unbelievable to play in the NHL as a player, but to get to live these do-or-die situations in terms of moving on or you’re done, scoring the big goal in the overtime, that feeling that a player has, it’s unbelievable. I’m so happy that they’re getting to live that.”
That journey continues, this time into uncharted waters alongside the three titans of the league.
“We have a special group,” said Josh Anderson.
The Canadiens have shown that so far, and now they’ll try to prove just how special they really are.
“I think we got all the pieces,” said Newhook. “We’re a team that plays with a lot of pace. I think when we’re playing our style, we’re a really hard team to play against for everyone. We’re a deep team. I think in playoffs you need to have depth and you need to be able to get something from everyone in the lineup. I think we’ve had that from the start of the playoffs up until now, and Dobes is playing really well. We’re confident in him, and we’re confident in everyone in the room. I think we know what we’re capable of and we’re excited to keep it rolling.”
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