Sabres score 7 straight, surge past Canadiens to force Game 7 in East 2nd Round

MONTREAL -- Rasmus Dahlin had five points and the Buffalo Sabres rallied to avoid elimination from the Stanley Cup Playoffs with an 8-3 win against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at Bell Centre on Saturday.

Dahlin had a goal and four assists, Tage Thompson had a goal and three assists, and Jack Quinn scored two power-play goals and had an assist for Buffalo, the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Division, which defeated the Boston Bruins in six games in the first round.

“I’m very proud of our guys,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “We talked this morning about everybody needs to play their best game. That the regular season doesn’t mean anything, and 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.”

The Sabres scored seven straight goals to come back after trailing 3-1 in the first period to tie the best-of-7 series 3-3 while winning their fifth of six road games in these playoffs.

“I think we simplify our game on the road,” Dahlin said. “We are playing more aggressive, stuff that you should be doing at home also, but I like our road game.”

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped the 18 shots he faced after replacing Alex Lyon at 10:14 of the first, when Jake Evans’ short-handed goal put the Canadiens up 3-1. Lyon allowed three goals on four shots.

“Five points is pretty good, I don’t think there’s much else for you to say about that,” Luukkonen said about Dahlin’s contribution to the win. “I mean it’s an elimination game for us, our captain steps up and that’s how you lead a team. I think that’s been the whole year how well he has played. He’s not always the loudest on the bench or in the locker room but you take things over when you need to and he very much showed it today.”

Evans had a goal and an assist and Arber Xhekaj and Ivan Demidov scored for Montreal, the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic.

“We did not play a good game,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “We had a few little moments, but not many. They’re a good team. They played a good game.”

Jakub Dobes allowed six goals on 33 shots before he was replaced midway through the third period by Jacob Fowler, who saved one of two shots over the final 10:02.

Game 7 is in Buffalo on Monday (7:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“We’ve been in this situation all season where people have doubted us, had us out, had our backs against the wall all season,” Thompson said. “So it’s no different. Obviously the stage is bigger and the stakes are higher here, but at the end of the day it’s still the same game.

“So nothing really changes for us. We’re a good team, we know that, and I think that belief in this room is really the only thing that matters.”

St. Louis said he’s looking for the Canadiens to “bounce forward” in Game 7. 

“I just feel ‘bounce back,’ you come back to where you were,” St. Louis said. “'Bounce forward,' you’re actually further than where you were,” before adding “physics” as an explanation.

Dahlin, who tied the Sabres playoff records for assists and points in a game, quieted the capacity crowd for the first time when he gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead 32 seconds into the first period. The Sabres captain deked around Juraj Slafkovsky when he drove to the net from the left side before scoring with a backhand over Dobes’ right shoulder.

The Canadiens brought the crowd back to life when they roared back with three straight goals on their first four shots.

Xhekaj tied it 1-1 at 1:40 off a face-off. Evans drew the puck back to Xhekaj, who moved up from the right point to snap a one-timer that went into the net off the top of Lyon’s glove.

Demidov put Montreal up 2-1 with a power-play goal at 8:12. He one-timed Lane Hutson’s pass to drive a slap shot past Lyon from just above the right face-off dot.

Evans scored short-handed at 10:14 to push it to 3-1. He drove the right side on a 2-on-1 with Josh Anderson and shot past Lyon to chase the Sabres goalie from the net.

Luukkonen relieved Lyon and Buffalo rallied to score seven unanswered goals.

Jason Zucker cut it to 3-2 when he scored on a power play at 13:56. He drove to the right side of the net to put Josh Norris’ pass in stick side.

“We actually liked our game to start so it was kind of like, let’s stick with it, keep playing downhill, playing after them and staying on our toes, and I thought we did a good job of that,” Zucker said.

Zach Benson tied it 3-3 at 1:00 of the second period when he came out from behind the net to get to a rebound of Thompson’s deflection of Bowen Byram’s shot before sliding in a backhand.

Quinn put the Sabres up 4-3 with Buffalo’s second straight power-play goal on a one-timer from the right point at 10:54.

Konsta Helenius made it 5-3 at 12:59 when he one-timed a shot past Dobes from the right side on a 2-on-1 pass from Zucker.

Quinn scored his second power-play goal to make it 6-3 at 9:58 of the third period.

“We gave them tons of opportunity to possess pucks and make plays,” Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson said. “And when we had the puck we weren’t making the right reads, we were disconnected.”

Fowler relieved Dobes but he was pulled for an extra attacker when Thompson scored into an empty net at 14:12 to push it to 7-3. Zach Metsa scored Buffalo’s fourth power-play goal at 17:49 for the 8-3 final.

“We were keeping it simple, honestly,” Dahlin said. “Quick puck movement and we had a shooting mentality today and we got pucks back. So it was overall a good power play game.”

NOTES: Dahlin is the first defenseman in NHL history to have five points in an elimination game. No Sabres defenseman ever had more than three points in a playoff game. …   Dahlin tied the Sabres record for points in a postseason game, matching Derek Roy (two goals, three assists, 2006) and John Tucker (two goals, three assists, 1988). … Dahlin tied the Sabres record for assists in a playoff game, joining Dave Andreychuk (1990) and Gilbert Perreault (1982, 1980).