The Canadiens are moving on, but the celebrations can’t hide how they were outplayed

Montreal won 3-2 in overtime. The scoreline flattered them. Buffalo outshot the Canadiens 39-23 across regulation. Jakub Dobes made 37 saves, and Alex Newhook’s goal at 8:14 of the extra period sent a sold-out Bell Centre into a frenzy. The win pushed Montreal into the Eastern Conference Final against Carolina. But this series wasn’t controlled, it was stolen. And the celebrations along Ste-Catherine Street can’t erase it.

Dobes rebuilds his game

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.

Newhook’s habit of ending series

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.

The possession problem the party hid

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 will demand a different team

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.

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