Although it wasn’t great for my Sabres, I had a solid Thursday night on the NHL, going 5-2 to win 3.23 units. Tonight the Habs look to end Buffalo’s fun season at home in Game 6.
Game 6: Canadiens vs. Sabres (8:00)
It’s do or die time for the Buffalo Sabres tonight, a game away from elimination as the Habs come into tonight up 3-2 in this series. Biggest game in Buffalo in decades and I’m so worried about it, but at the same point, I think I already know our fate. I thought Game 1 was actually pretty solid for both teams, with my Sabres winning 4-2 at home. We got outshot 28-16, which wasn’t great, but I thought we played quite well on both ends of the ice all night to get the win. Alex Lyon was fantastic in goal, with some help from the posts. Really good game, and the offense was successful on limited opportunities with some big goals from the depth in our line. Zach Benson was fantastic, drawing a penalty early and getting two fantastic assists to set up the first two goals of the first period. Then even though we only had one shot on goal in the third period, locked down and held off the comeback push from Montreal. Montreal answered back in Game 2 on Friday night, absolutely dominating the Sabres in an absolutely awful game. We looked like complete shit from start to finish, getting embarrassed quickly and often all night on home ice. The crowd was out of it right away after we went down 2-0 in just the first five minutes of the game. Gave away the puck on more turnovers than passes we completed. We barely got anything going in the slightest in the Habs zone. Barely any quality scoring chances. Our offense was completely dead. We took a ton of stupid penalties and the Habs dominated the entire game to tie up this series. Our best players were the worst ones on the ice tonight, especially Tage. It was just horrible. Only bright side of this game was Benson being his little carnival freak self, our little rat. But besides him, nothing. As the series shifted to Montreal for Game 3, it was arguably even more embarrassing for Buffalo, losing 6-2 on the road to fall 2-1 in the series. We’ve gotten completely dominated for two games in a row. Our defense was absolutely awful, and our offense got next to nothing going with just a goal from Tage 53 seconds in and a power play goal by Dahlin. We couldn’t even possess the fucking puck or keep it in the Habs zone. Shockingly, even giving up five goals, I did think Lyon was pretty good. The game should’ve been a blowout in the first period, but he kept us in there until everything completely fell apart. Just so bad. Game 4 on Tuesday was a must win game for the Sabres or the season was easily going to be over and it was one of the ugliest games I’ve watched them play all season, but we found a miracle of a way to win 3-2 on the road to even up this series. Lindy made several lineup changes going into Game 4, the biggest being a goalie change (which I didn’t think those two losses were Lyon’s fault) to UPL. The Sabres started hot, with Mattias Samuelsson scoring in transition on a beautiful play in the first period. Then the ridiculousness started. The Sabres thought they made it 2-0, but it wasn’t called a goal on the ice. Toronto called down to review it and it was determined that it was a good, with Dobes’ glove fully crossing the goal line with the puck in it. Right after that long review, Marty St. Louis immediately then challenged it for goaltender interference. It’s fucking ridiculous that we can’t just have all of this done on the original review that got called in from Toronto on the puck crossing the goal line. Then it was in fact determined to be goaltender interference (probably was) and determined to be no goal. I think that was the right call, but that completely killed anything going in the game after a ten minute delay. Not long after Alex Newhook tied it up for the Habs and after a garbage penalty on Tage, Cole Caufield scores on a soft goal that had me bitching about UPL to give them a 2-0 lead. Somehow though we got a spark of luck from the hockey gods, and by a miraculous bounce off the boards on a dump and chase for Tage, the puck bounced into the net. The Sabres were playing terrible, but on the power play with 4:40 left in the game, Josh Doan set up a beautiful play right in front for Zach Benson to finish for a great backhand goal on his 21st birthday, giving us the 3-2 lead 4:40 into the third. Huge goal from our little rat to win it. Sometimes you gotta win ugly, and that’s exactly what we did. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, we got the win. After his bad goal he gave up to end the first period, UPL was fantastic in goal for the second and the third to get us this win, making 28 saves on the 30 shots he saw. I thought Montreal was definitely the better team tonight though, outshooting us 30-22. It was just error after error for the Sabres both offensively and defensively, but we found a way to win a must win game. The refs were awful, but we beat them and the Habs. Somehow. The Sabres didn’t do themselves any favors though. We played so sloppy for most of that game and couldn’t stay out of the box, and yeah a lot of calls were garbage, and the refs made this game take WAY too long, but who cares, we won. With the miracle to get the series back to Buffalo tied for Game 5 on Thursday night. The Sabres started hot in Game 5 and looked good early at home, but crumbled apart early in the horrendous second, giving up three straight goals to go on to lose 6-3 as the Habs put them a game away from elimination. The teams traded goals in a crazy five goal first period, with the Sabres leading 3-2 after the first. Fun start to watch. I thought we played well and looked like the better team through that first period, finally looking like we’re playing our game. The second period though was horrendous for us. We got dominated, with the defense looking lost and giving up way too many good looks, with the defense getting caught puck watching for Josh Anderson to get past everyone to tie it up and UPL giving up two brutal goals. Lyon probably should’ve been in the net again. I don’t care that Luukkonen won the last one. We looked good early. I thought through the first period of the game we were the better team and looked like we were the better team just playing our game, getting off to a lead. But I couldn’t believe, well actually I could, how we just completely crumbled in the second period. At that point it was over, with the Habs going on to win it 6-3. This series is over. Our season is over. 80% of teams that win Game 5 go on to win the series, and I’d assuming that number is even higher when the lower seed wins Game 5 to go home and close it out. Especially when it’s a team that hasn’t lost two games in a row since March. Ain’t happening. Montreal’s dominated us every game this series, even in the two that we won. This game is the whole season. I know we’ve gotten so dominated every game of this series, but at the same point, that can all be erased if we could figure out our shit tonight on the road and win this one to force Game 7, then anything could happen back in Buffalo on Sunday. That said, I think we lose tonight to end our season and expect the Habs to win it at home to advance to Carolina for the Eastern Conference Finals, but I can’t bet against my Sabres here, as much as I think that’s the right bet. I love the over again tonight, especially in an elimination game, and I’ll go back to that for 2 units. I’m going back to my same player props in this game that I had for Game 6. For half a unit each, I’ll individually take Josh Doan, Zach Benson, and Alex Newhook to each get a point.
LET’S GO BUFFALO!!
Bets
2u Sabres/Canadiens over 6.5 (+105)
.5u Josh Doan over 0.5 point (-120)
.5u Zach Benson over 0.5 point (+100)
.5u Alex Newhook over 0.5 point (+125)
Regular Season Record: 935-1041-2 (-106.22 units)
Playoffs Round 1 Record: 68-75 (-7.44 units)
Playoffs Round 2 Record: 34-31 (+7.66 units)
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A Town's Zone 