6-2 Montreal FINAL
Habs Lead Series 2-1
| Goaltenders: Lyon, Sabres; Dobes, Canadiens | Caulfield breaks the schneid |
Newhook Drags Montreal Back Into the Series Lead
Montreal needed a tone‑setter in the first of this two‑game homestand, and Alex Newhook delivered it with the swagger of a man who decided the night belonged to him.
After Buffalo’s early‑series punch and the knife‑edge loss that followed, the Canadiens came out with purpose, pace, and a refusal to let the Sabres dictate the temperature.
Newhook was the hinge — the player who turned good intentions into actual damage — and every shift he took seemed to tilt the rink a few degrees toward the Buffalo end.
The Sabres opened the scoring again, just as they did in the last meeting, but this time Montreal didn’t let the game calcify around that moment. They pushed back, layered pressure, and finally cracked Buffalo’s structure with Newhook’s burst of offense, the kind of tear that changes the mood of a building and the posture of a series.
From there, the Canadiens managed the game with a veteran calm, closing out the third with the kind of disciplined, elbows‑in hockey that says: we’re done chasing.
The win puts Montreal up 2–1 in the series and plants a flag before the second half of the homestand — a reminder that this matchup isn’t going to be decided by Buffalo’s early punches, but by Montreal’s ability to answer them with something sharper.\
