Buffalo’s postseason run ended in heartbreaking fashion with a Game 7 overtime loss
This article should have been written and published a few days ago, but I wanted to take the time to step away and process all the feels following the disappointment of the Buffalo Sabres getting knocked out on Monday night.
That still hurts. There is no other way to put it. After a grueling, chaotic, and utterly unpredictable seven-game war against the Montreal Canadiens, the Buffalo Sabres’ first playoff run in 15 years came to a crushing end in overtime of Game 7. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for a young team that showed immense heart, especially after fighting back from a 3-2 series deficit with a historic 8-3 blowout in Game 6 to force the winner-take-all finale at KeyBank Center.
Ultimately, the bounces didn’t go Buffalo’s way when it mattered most, and the Canadiens’ opportunistic 5-on-5 play and high-danger finishing proved to be the difference.
Now that the dust has settled and the heartbreak has slightly numbed, let’s dive into the stats and analytics from the series, and hand out our Sabres Player of the Series honors.
The Series by the Numbers (All Situations)
Goals For / Goals Against: 24 GF / 25 GA
Shots Per Game: 29.4 SF / 28.0 SA
Power Play: BUF 36.0% (9-for-25), MTL 30.8% (8-for-26)
Penalty Kill: BUF 69.2% (18-for-26), MTL 64.0% (16-for-25)
Team Save Percentage: BUF .867%, MTL .888%
Face-off Percentage: BUF 47.3%, MTL 52.7%
Top Scorers
Rasmus Dahlin was in incendiary form during this series, scoring freely with ten points in seven games, (three goals and seven assists), though five of those did come in one game. Next was Tage Thompson who added eight points (3G, 5A), which also came in bunches. Josh Doan had seven points, Zach Benson chipped in with six and Mattias Samuelsson had five points.
The Analytics Breakdown: High Danger vs. High Volume
If you looked purely at the shot clocks and standard possession metrics, you would have thought the Sabres had the upper hand for long stretches. Buffalo heavily outshot Montreal in Games 5 and 6, controlling 52.1% of the 5-on-5 shot attempts over the course of the seven games. The underlying metric that doomed Buffalo, however, was high-danger chance conversion.
According to NHL EDGE tracking data, the Sabres generated a staggering number of high-danger shots, with their top units constantly driving into the low slot. But Montreal was much more clinical from those premium areas. The Canadiens outscored Buffalo 14-9 from high-danger zones over the series.
The major saving grace that kept Buffalo in the fight? The resurrected Power Play. The Sabres were mercurial against Montreal’s penalty kill, operating at a blazing 36.0% clip overall, but those goals came in clumps and not at all when they weren’t getting anything going even strength. The 4-for-4 power-play masterclass in Game 6 was a work of art, but unfortunately they didn’t get power play goals at crucial junctures of the series and when the 5-on-5 scoring dried up in Game 7, Buffalo’s fate was sealed.
KeyBank Center Advantage Evaporates
Perhaps the most baffling and frustrating trend of the entire series was the total collapse of Buffalo’s home-ice advantage. During the regular season, Lindy Ruff’s squad turned KeyBank Center into a fortress, boasting a 26-10-5 home record—the fourth-best in the entire NHL. When the postseason arrived, that home dominance completely vanished.
Buffalo won just two of their seven home playoff games across the first two rounds. In front of a raucous, desperate, and starved fan base that packed the arena, the Plaza outside and Canalside nearby, the Sabres looked gripped by the pressure on home ice. They repeatedly surrendered soft early goals at home, played tight in transition, and ultimately dropped Games 2, 5, and the decisive Game 7 on their own ice. For a team that fought all season to win the division and secure home-ice advantage, letting Montreal dictate the terms in Buffalo was the hidden fatal blow of the series.
The Crease Conundrum: Volatile Goaltending Cost Buffalo
You cannot talk about this series without addressing the goaltending carousel. A team save percentage of .867% in the Stanley Cup Playoffs is nearly impossible to overcome – Utah got .875%, Dallas got .874% and Edmonton had .866% and all went home in six games.
Both Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Alex Lyon suffered from severe bouts of inconsistency that repeatedly shifted momentum back to Montreal.
Game 5: Luukkonen gets pulled after leaking early goals.
Game 6: Lyon gets the start, gets chased 10 mins in.
Game 7: UPL returns, battles hard, but loses in OT to a saveable shot.
For goalies who played more than five games, UPL was a very pedestrian 8th in Goals Saved above Expected (GSAx) with 0.037 per 60 min played, Lyon was 9th with 0.026 while Jakub Dobes was third with 0.721.
Neither goaltender was able to lock down the crease or provide that singular, series-defining “robbery” performance when the defense broke down. Luukkonen looked plagued by rebound control issues early in the series, while Lyon—brought in to provide a steady, veteran presence—imploded early in Game 6. UPL showed immense courage by coming back out to battle hard in Game 7, but the cumulative effect of chasing games due to soft, early goals proved to be a weight too heavy for this young roster to carry.
The Coming of Age: Owen Power’s Growth
If there was a massive silver lining on the blue line aside from Dahlin, it was the definitive growth of Owen Power. Often criticized during the regular season for not using his large frame effectively enough in defensive transitions, Power took a monumental leap forward in this series. He played with an edge we haven’t seen from him before. Power consistently closed gaps quickly, rubbed out Montreal forwards along the wall, and displayed a calming, elite level of poise when breaking the puck out under heavy pressure. His defensive awareness ticked up a big notch, proving that he can handle top-four playoff match-ups without breaking a sweat.
The “Future is Bright” Award
It takes young players time to adjust to playoff hockey, but Josh Doan looked like he was born to play playoff hockey. Jack Quinn found his footing rapidly late in the series, potting his first two career playoff goals in the Game 6 rout. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Konsta Helenius scored in consecutive games (Games 5 and 6), showing that the stage wasn’t too big for Buffalo’s youth movement.
The Disappearing Act: Where Was the Veteran Help?
While the kids and Dahlin dragged this series to seven games, a major reason the Sabres are packing up their lockers today is that several key, established players completely vanished when the postseason intensity ramped up. On the ghost list were:
Alex Tuch: Expected to be the emotional and physical heartbeat of the top six especially after the Bosto series, Tuch looked uncharacteristically step-slow. He struggled to generate his trademark rush chances, was repeatedly erased along the walls by Montreal’s defensemen, and failed to convert on the few high-danger looks he did receive.
Jason Zucker: Brought in specifically for his veteran postseason experience and snarl, Zucker was largely invisible at 5-on-5. Aside from a few standard physical sequences, he failed to provide the depth scoring or the clutch, greasy goals Buffalo desperately needed when the top line was being hard-matched.
Ryan McLeod: Tasked with anchoring the third line and locking things down defensively while chipping in transition offense, McLeod struggled heavily. He was consistently on the wrong side of the puck in his own zone, struggled in the face-off dot (contributing to Buffalo’s poor 47.3% series average), and failed to drive play effectively against Montreal’s bottom-six depth. Edmonton fans had warned us that he tends to disappear in the postseason, and we saw it happen live.
When your highest-paid and most experienced depth forwards get neutralized, it forces a young team to play a flawless game—and Buffalo just didn’t have the margin for error.
Honorable Mention –
Zach Benson was absolute dynamite for a guy playing in his first-ever Stanley Cup playoff series. While some of the older forwards struggled under the weight of Montreal’s physical play, Benson’s high-octane motor never stopped running. He was an absolute menace on the forecheck, single-handedly turning over pucks along the boards and generating multiple high-danger scoring chances in the dirty areas of the ice. He showed the kind of playoff grit that will make him a cornerstone of this core for a decade.
Player of the Series –
While there were a few commendable performances, the undisputed Sabres Player of the Series was captain Rasmus Dahlin. When the Sabres were facing elimination ahead of Game 6 at the Bell Centre, Dahlin put the entire franchise on his back. He delivered a historic 5-point performance (1 goal, 4 assists), tying Derek Roy (2006) and John Tucker (1988) for the single-game franchise playoff scoring record.
Throughout the seven games, Dahlin was the engine. He log-jammed massive minutes, quarterbacked the top power-play unit, and did everything in his power to transition the puck out of danger zones while dealing with relentless forechecking from Juraj Slafkovsky and Nick Suzuki.
He finished the series leading the team in scoring and average time on ice. It was a true captain’s performance that proved Dahlin belongs on the biggest stage. And all of this without even talking about the difficult year his fiancee and he endured off the ice.
Final Thoughts
This loss is going to sting all summer. To return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs after a 15-year drought, capture the imagination of Western New York, force a Game 7, and lose it in sudden-death overtime at home is brutal. But context matters.
The Sabres and Canadiens are two of the youngest teams in the league. Buffalo’s roster featured a glaring lack of situational Game 7 experience compared to some of Montreal’s veterans who have been to a Cup Final. The Sabres proved they can score with the best of them and that their special teams are elite. If they can clean up the high-danger defensive lapses, get stabilized goaltending next October, and get their veteran core to show up when it matters, this won’t be a one-off playoff appearance—it will be the beginning of a window opening wide.