- Josh Doan opens the scoring 4:31 into Game 1 and finishes with a goal and an assist
- Sabres take a 4-2 win and a 1-0 series lead, their first second-round game since 2007
- Read below for the full Game 1 breakdown, video of the opening goal, and what comes next on Friday
Buffalo finally has a second-round game to celebrate.
The Sabres opened their Eastern Conference Semifinal series with a 4-2 win over the Canadiens at KeyBank Center on Wednesday night. Josh Doan got things rolling 4:31 into the first period and added an assist before the night was done.
Doan tapped in a feed from Zach Benson on a 3-on-1 rush, the kind of zone entry that’s defined Buffalo’s playoff run. Benson now has four points in his last two games. Per the team, that’s the most by any Sabres skater age 20 or younger over a two-game stretch in any playoff year.
Ryan McLeod made it 2-0 on the power play at 13:26 of the first, with both Doan and Benson picking up assists. Nick Suzuki cut the lead to one before the period ended, but Buffalo answered fast in the second.
Jordan Greenway buried his first of the playoffs at 3:32, and Bowen Byram added a power-play marker at 9:01 to push it to 4-1. Byram’s goal was his fourth of the postseason, tying the Sabres franchise record for goals by a defenseman in a single playoff year.
Kirby Dach got Montreal back within two later in the second, but that was as close as the Habs would get. Alex Lyon stopped 26 of 28 shots in his fifth straight start. The Sabres went 2-for-3 on the man advantage, their first multi-power-play-goal night of these playoffs.
This is Buffalo’s first game beyond the opening round since 2007, when the team beat the Rangers in six and then lost to the Senators in the Eastern Conference Final. Doan’s opening tally was the first Sabres playoff goal beyond round one in 19 years. The previous one belonged to Maxim Afinogenov in that 2007 ECF series. The full Game 1 highlights and box score are up at NHL.com.
The Sabres knocked out the Bruins in six to get here, capping a chippy Round 1 series that ended a long drought of its own.
Game 2 is Friday at 7 p.m. ET in Buffalo, again on TNT and Sportsnet.
