Sabres-Canadiens Series Will Get Dramatic Ending It Deserves After Buffalo Rallies to Force Game 7

MONTRÉAL -- The Atlantic Division provided one of the great divisional battles we've seen this season in the NHL and it's only fitting now that it will provide a second Game 7 in the playoffs.

The Montréal Canadiens had the chance to finish off the Buffalo Sabres in Game 6 on home ice at Bell Centre, but blew a 3-1 first-period lead and allowed seven unanswered goals on the way to an 8-3 final, setting up Game 7 on Monday night in Buffalo at KeyBank Center.

In a way, this series has helped provide us that everything we've known about hockey this season is true and also that some things just couldn't be further from it.

What we've known is that the Atlantic Division had some of the best teams in the NHL fighting it out throughout the season with Buffalo, Montréal, and Tampa Bay. The Sabres won the division and beat the Boston Bruins in six games, while the Canadiens and Lightning wrestled for seven games.

Now the Habs get to do it again and go on the road for Game 7 in Buffalo while the Sabres get to have their first home Game 7 since 2001 when Darius Kasparaitis broke their hearts in overtime for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Early on, Game 6 was on the fast road to being a laugher in the Canadiens favor.

Even though Rasmus Dahlin scored to give Buffalo a 1-0 lead just 32 seconds into the game, Montréal scored on three of their first four shots and chased Alex Lyon from the game 10:14 into the game for a 3-1 lead. With Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the game after he had a rough showing in Game 5 in Buffalo, when he allowed five goals in a 6-3 loss. This time around, he slammed the door and gave the Sabres the opening they needed to turn it around.

"I feel like as a goalie, you kind of have to think that you're almost playing with house money at that point," Luukkonen said. "You kind of want to just do your best to help your team win. You can't overcomplicate things; you have to just go one shot at a time; it doesn't matter at what point it comes."

The shots stopped coming from the Canadiens and began to pile up for Buffalo from that point on. Jason Zucker got the first of four power-play goals in the game to make it 3-2 at the end of the first period. From that point on, things only got better for Buffalo and much worse for the Canadiens.

Zach Benson tied it 3-3 a minute into the second. Jack Quinn's first of two power-play goals put them ahead to stay, 4-3, followed two minutes later by rookie Konsta Helenius's second of the series and a 5-3 lead through two. Quinn, Tage Thompson and rookie Zach Metsa each scored in the third to set up Game 7.

On a night when the Sabres needed their star players to carry them, they did. Dahlin became the first defenseman in NHL history to have five points in an elimination game. Thompson had four points and Quinn put up three to go with Luukkonen stopping all 17 shots he faced in relief.

"Very proud of our guys," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "We talked this morning about how everybody needs to play their best game. The regular season doesn't mean anything. The Boston series doesn't mean anything. And the five games to this point really don't mean anything. Our defining moment is this game tonight, and we have to play our best game."

In a sport where home-ice advantage is coveted so greatly, these two teams have shown that playing on the road is where they're most comfortable despite the rowdy and rambunctious settings around them. The Canadiens are 5-2 on the road in the playoffs and the Sabres are now 5-1. Go figure.

"We're in the process of seeing if we can play here on Monday," Ruff joked.

Ruff hinted they may take steps to make playing at home feel more like playing on the road. Hotel life while at home? It could happen. The pressure of playing at home is also very real. Having rabid fans eager to celebrate creates a different kind of obvious pressure.

"I feel like both teams want the result bad for the fan base," Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. "Winning requires a lot of certain things, and you could do all those things and it's still not loyal. You might not win. We wanted this for our fans, for us. We wanted this game; we just didn't play well."

The good news for the Canadiens is the Sabres are 2-4 at home in the playoffs so far, but Game 7 is an unknown for them. The Canadiens already won a Game 7 on the road against the Lightning, and while they won that game with just nine shots on goal, given how offensively explosive this series has been, they'll likely need a busier approach.

Something we've heard from Bo Byram throughout the playoffs is how teams can feel like world beaters after a win and the worst team on earth after a loss. The key for both the Sabres and Canadiens has been their ability to move on from the highs and lows. Keeping an even keel prevents riding emotions too hard and going into a Game 7 with all the pressure in the world on both teams; it's the ultimate test of how well both teams can move forward and not get stuck in the past.

"Every team in the league that's in the playoffs, even the teams that just missed, they're all unbelievable teams," Zucker said. "And then you get into a playoff series and you get to play the same team up to seven times, there's going to be ups and downs, there's going to be tendencies you find, but then things that they change and we change. There's just so many different aspects of the game, so you have to kind of take it for what it is and just try to flush it and move on and that's what we've got to try and do now."