Buffalo Thwarts Montreal

Sabres Close Out Canadiens

Sabres 4 – Canadiens 2 (en) Buffalo wingers skated quickly into Montreal’s end and before the Canadiens could react Sabres (RW) Quinn carried the puck into the zone, dished it off to Sabres (LW) Zucker who scored his 11th giving Buffalo a 1-0 lead just 44 seconds into the first period.

With five minutes remaining in the first period and the Canadiens on a power play, Sabres (LW) Malenstyn skated hard down the side along the boards into the Montreal zone fending off his defender and skated across and leapt in front of Montreal’s crease backhanding a beauty into the net for a Buffalo 2-0 lead.

An exciting second period with Buffalo leading 2-0 as a “scramble” ensued in front of the Canadiens net as Sabres rookie (C) Helenius backhanded a shot that Sabres (LW) Benson got his stick on but the puck hit the post, then the other post and as (LW) Benson stayed with the puck he was able to smack it home and Buffalo had itself a 3-0 lead 2:44 into the second period.

Give Montreal credit because they did not cave and responded with a goal a minute and a half later for the 3-1 score and once more for the 3-2 score but with nine and a half minutes remaining in the second period Buffalo (G) Luukkonen became a wall of ice.

During the third period Buffalo (G) Luukkonen became even more frosty as he stopped all nine third period Montreal SOG forcing the Canadiens to pull their goaltender affording Sabres (C) Krebs the opportunity to score the empty net goal for the 4-2 lead and victory.

The Buffalo Sabres travel to Elmont, NY to play the New York Islanders this Saturday afternoon at 1 pm EST in game four of the Sabres five-game road trip.