Sabres feel the sting as incredible season screeches to a halt

They fought to the bitter end, but the Buffalo Sabres had their playoff run cut short by the Montreal Canadiens on Monday at KeyBank Center.

Buffalo, the resilient bunch that stormed back from last place in the conference in December, overcame a two-goal deficit to force overtime in Game 7. At 11:22 in the extra period, though, Montreal’s Alex Newhook scored from the top of the left circle to close the book on the 2025-26 Sabres.

Postgame, an emotional locker room reacted to the abrupt conclusion to a special year.

“F—ing sucks,” said captain Rasmus Dahlin. “… It’s one shot that decides the whole season.”

“It’s tough. It stings,” added Tage Thompson. “I thought we played hard all year to get to this point. I don’t think anyone in this room felt like we were done yet.”

“I appreciate all the guys. I appreciate everybody, how much they have put into this. As a group, we have put in so much,” echoed Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. “… It sucks even more. We have such a good group of guys here, I think we could have gone further.”

Early goals were a constant in this back-and-forth series, and the Sabres found themselves trailing just 4:30 into Game 7 when Phillip Danault deflected one in off his skate (no kicking motion). And after some great Buffalo scoring chances came up empty, Zachary Bolduc got left alone at the end of a power play and doubled the Montreal lead.

Luukkonen, making his fifth start of the playoffs, was excellent after those two goals. The shift immediately following the Bolduc goal, he turned aside an Alexandre Texier breakaway to hold the deficit at two.

The Sabres went to work in the second period and finally broke through with 6:41 remaining. A hardworking shift by the fourth line got the puck out to Mattias Samuelsson, and his shot deflected off the net-front Jordan Greenway and past goalie Jakub Dobes.

Momentum from that goal and ensuing Sabres opportunities carried into the third, where Dahlin scored his fourth of the playoffs to tie it. Ryan McLeod won an offensive-zone faceoff to Owen Power, who stepped up, teased a shot and passed left to the uncovered captain.

“I thought it was just part of our journey,” coach Lindy Ruff said of the comeback. “Tough start where we let one go in off a skate. A penalty that we almost had killed, we got just a little bit aggressive and left net front. But these guys never quit all year. Just another indication.”

For a moment, the Sabres looked to have taken the lead with 9:59 remaining in regulation, with a puck leaking through Dobes and Beck Malenstyn poking it in. But an early whistle – the officials had deemed the puck frozen – meant no goal. Ruff felt the whistle was a bit quick, he said postgame.

A continued push, though unsuccessful, had the Sabres optimistic about an overtime win when they regrouped at the third intermission. Dobes made six saves in the extra period before Montreal attacked on the rush and, with Jake Evans providing a fly-by screen on Luukkonen, got the series winner from Newhook.

“We were feeling good in here,” Thompson said. “Tons of confidence in this room, and I think everyone in here felt like this was going to end different and probably felt like we deserved a little better outcome. But that’s the way it goes sometimes. We’ve just got to, unfortunately, take that taste with us into the summer and do something about it.”

The time will come for the Sabres to reflect on their journey to the playoffs and what could’ve been if they’d gotten one more bounce, made one more play in Game 7; minutes after shaking hands and saluting the fans, it was still a feeling of shock.

Ruff, however, could already put the short- and long-term fallout of this game and season into perspective.

“I told the team it hurts. That pain will go away,” Ruff said. “But I won’t let this one game define the season we had. I told the players how proud I was of them. The battle that we took into Game 6 in Montreal, and then came back here and gave ourselves every chance to win.”

More broadly, Buffalo went from a 14-season playoff drought to an Atlantic Division title and inches from a trip to the Eastern Conference Final. Those memories will stick.

“This is a giant step for us,” the coach continued. “A giant step for all the players to really get a feel of what it’s really like. To be proud of being a Buffalo Sabre, to be proud of playing here. When I took the job, I thought, number one, I wanted these guys to like being a Buffalo Sabre. I think they like being a Sabre, and I think they made our city proud.

“It wasn’t the result we wanted, and to a man, they’re all disappointed. But they gave everything they had in the can.”

Postgame sound