- Caufield snapped a five-game playoff drought with a power-play goal in Montreal’s Game 3 win
- Newhook scored twice including an awarded empty-net goal after Dahlin hooked him from behind
- Read below for the full breakdown plus video of the Game 3 rout and final-minute chaos
Cole Caufield’s playoff drought is over.
The 51-goal scorer broke a five-game playoff dry spell with a power-play tally in Montreal’s 6-2 Game 3 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday, giving the Canadiens a 2-1 series lead at the Bell Centre.
Caufield finished off a Lane Hutson setup midway through the second to put the Habs up 2-1, his second goal of the playoffs after lighting it up for 51 in the regular season. The drought had been weighing on him.
“I’m just trying to build off these last couple of games,” Caufield said. “Obviously, it’s tight out there, there’s little room, but when there is, you’ve got to take advantage of that. And I think I’m starting to do that, and hopefully we can keep that going.”
Here’s video of the Caufield go-ahead goal:
Alex Newhook stole the show again with two more goals, including one of the stranger playoff tallies you’ll see this postseason. With 4:46 left and Alex Lyon pulled, Newhook had a clean lane to an empty net before Rasmus Dahlin hooked him from behind. Since the goalie was already on the bench, the refs awarded him the goal instead of giving him a penalty shot, making it 6-2.
That brings him to five playoff goals in nine games after putting up 13 across the whole regular season. He joins Mark Recchi as the only Canadiens with multigoal games in back-to-back playoff contests since Recchi pulled it off in 1997.
Things got chippy in the closing minutes too. Beck Malenstyn drove the net hard and crashed into Jakub Dobes, drawing a goalie interference minor that Juraj Slafkovsky cashed in on the power play.
Check out the Malenstyn collision:
The two teams combined for 80 penalty minutes and 10 power plays, with 50 of those PIMs piling up in the last three minutes alone. The bad blood was on full display:
Tage Thompson opened the scoring 53 seconds in for Buffalo, but the Habs took over from there. Newhook tied it on a rebound late in the first, then Caufield, Zachary Bolduc, Slafkovsky, and Kirby Dach added goals before Newhook capped it with the awarded one. Lyon stopped 31 of 37 shots in the loss while Jakub Dobes turned aside 26 of 28.
Watch video of the full Game 3 highlights:
Game 4 is Tuesday at the Bell Centre at 7 p.m. ET. The Habs are two wins away from the Eastern Conference Final.
