"You shake your head, snake bitten a little bit,. It's kind of come in droves," Sabres coach Dan Bylsma said. "But it's part of our game and part of playing. You know you're gonna have injuries, you expect to have them throughout your lineup. Unfortunately, you have a rash of them, but that's no excuse for how we play, for how we need to play, and we need to keep fighting through it."
Aside from the injury, the result of the game was far from how the Sabres had hoped to open their season. Perhaps it was early-season jitters, Bylsma said, or maybe it was over-excitement, but they didn't register a shot on goal until 7:45 had elapsed in the first period and trailed 8-1 in that category when Brendan Gallagher opened the scoring for Montreal less than a minute later.
Things settled down late in the period, beginning with a strong forechecking shift from Marcus Foligno and Johan Larsson, and the Sabres actually finished the game with a 31-24 advantage in shots. But for all their opportunities, they scored only once, a power-play goal from Matt Moulson 35 seconds into the third period.
Gallagher responded to Moulson's goal with his second of the game, giving him 10 goals in 17 career games against the Sabres and giving Montreal a 3-1 lead at the time. Torrey Mitchell and Andrew Shaw also scored goals for the Canadiens.
Robin Lehner made 20 saves in his first start of the season. He kept the Sabres in the game at times, like his sprawling pad save on Alex Galchenyuk in the second period, and there was little he could do with the goals he did allow. He was screened on the first, the second came from a loose puck in front of the net, the third was that tip-in from Gallagher, and the fourth a put-back.
His counterpart, Al Montoya, made 30 saves while substituting for Carey Price, who did not make the trip due to illness.
"It's unfortunate," Lehner said. "I think they came out good, we stepped up and played a decent hockey game but they got some good bounces. We have a few things to work on but all in all, we've just got to keep building on it."