Montreal Canadiens Playoff Run: A Victory That Revealed Bigger Problems
The Montreal Canadiens playoff run advanced to the Eastern Conference Final, yet the performance exposed major weaknesses. +The Montreal Canadiens playoff run is still alive, and the city is buzzing with excitement. Fans packed the Bell Centre, Ste-Catherine Street exploded in celebration, and overtime hero Alex Newhook delivered another unforgettable moment for the franchise.
But beneath the noise and emotion sits a difficult truth.
Montreal may have won Game 7 against Buffalo, but they were outplayed for most of the night. The 3-2 overtime victory looked heroic on the scoreboard. On the ice, it often looked like survival.
The Montreal Canadiens playoff run has been built on resilience, timely scoring, and elite goaltending under pressure.
That’s what makes this win fascinating. The Canadiens advanced to the Eastern Conference Final, yet the performance exposed major weaknesses that could become dangerous against Carolina.
The celebration was real. The warning signs were too.
Montreal Canadiens Playoff Run Saved by Dobes
Dobes’s 37-save Game 7 came five nights after he was yanked in Buffalo. Game 6: four goals on 18 shots. The difference wasn’t the system. Martin St-Louis stuck with the 1-1-3. The change was positional. In Game 6, Dobes was dropping early on passes across the royal road.
Tage Thompson’s feeds burned him twice. Monday, he stayed upright through those lateral moves. He ate first shots and steered rebounds into the trapezoid, not the slot.
From the 12th minute of the first period on, Buffalo mustered 2.7 expected goals at even strength and scored once. In the second period alone, Dobes faced nine high-danger chances. He stopped them all.
Dylan Cozens and Alex Tuch camped at his crease. A Cozens tip from the doorstep with 5:40 left in the third was gloved away. That save preserved the tie.
Alex Newhook Keeps the Montreal Canadiens Playoff Run Alive
Newhook did it again. Two series, two clinchers. The Round 1 winner against Boston was a deflection. This one was a snipe. Suzuki dropped the puck just inside the blue line, and Newhook carried it into the right circle. Luukkonen squared up.
Newhook half-stride hesitated, freezing the defense pair of Mattias Samuelsson and Rasmus Dahlin for a beat, then snapped a wrist shot low-glove. It’s the same spot he’d targeted on a rush late in the third, but this time Luukkonen couldn’t get there.
The puck went in at 8:14. St-Louis had been using Newhook on the second power play, but at even strength he skated 14:08 against Buffalo’s third line. Montreal chased that matchup through last change in overtime, and it paid.
Buffalo Dominated Much of the Montreal Canadiens Playoff Run Battle
The Bell Centre was loud. Ste-Catherine Street was packed. Two fans got fined for fireworks, according to Montreal police. All that noise obscured a worrying fact: Montreal was badly outplayed. Buffalo won the shot attempt battle 66-44. They controlled 58.2% of expected goals at five-on-five, per Natural Stat Trick.
The Sabres’ 1-2-2 forecheck hemmed the Canadiens’ defense below the hash marks for shifts that dragged past a minute. This happened three separate times in the second period. Juraj Slafkovsky was the only Montreal forward in positive territory for shot share.
The Suzuki line spent most of its night chasing. Dobes finished 14 percentage points above expected save percentage in the highest-leverage game of his career. Luukkonen stopped 20 of 23. That was the margin.
Carolina Could End the Montreal Canadiens Playoff Run
The Hurricanes aren’t the Sabres. Carolina’s neutral-zone defense forces turnovers at a higher rate than any team left in the East. Their forecheck, a 2-1-2 with an aggressive F3, will test a Montreal defense that struggled to exit cleanly against Buffalo’s softer 1-2-2.
Mike Matheson logged 29:41 in Game 7. He was visibly tired by the third period. Carolina can roll four lines that sustain cycling pressure. The series starts Thursday in Raleigh. Whether St-Louis can fix the breakouts before then is the only question that matters now.
