Sabres edge Canadiens in Game 4 to even Eastern 2nd Round

MONTREAL -- Zach Benson scored the go-ahead goal on the power play early in the third period, and the Buffalo Sabres held on for a 3-2 win against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Second Round at Bell Centre on Tuesday.

Tage Thompson had a goal and an assist, and Josh Doan had two assists for Buffalo, the No. 1 seed in the Atlantic Division, which tied the best-of-7 series 2-2 after losing the previous two games.

“We were too loose — I thought tonight we tightened things up,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “We finally got to the place where we need to be. It looked like our team again, from the way we started the game to the way we finished the game.”

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 28 saves for the win in his first start since April 21, when he was replaced by Alex Lyon 16 seconds into the third period of a 4-2 loss to the Boston Bruins in Game 2 of the first round.

“We kind of took their speed away in the third period,” Luukkonen said. “We didn’t give them much, so it was a good fight and we kind of stuck with it. We knew that we can win the game and the power play came up big, and it was just fun to see how much the guys were putting on the line today.”

Alex Newhook scored his fifth goal in three games, and Cole Caufield scored for a second straight game for Montreal, the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic. Jakub Dobes made 19 saves.

“Special teams played a huge part,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “It’s hard to believe that we only got one goal on the power play because I felt like we had a lot of chances. You’ve got to tip your cap to the goalie, he played a good game.”

Game 5 is at Buffalo on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“It’s hard to win three in a row in the playoffs, and we saw that tonight,” Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle said.

Benson put the Sabres up 3-2 at 4:41 with Buffalo’s second straight power-play goal. He took a centering pass from Doan in the low slot and scored on a backhand.

“We’ve talked about our power play being good in key moments, and that’s what we did,” said Benson, who celebrated his 21st birthday. “We went out there, we executed, heck of a slip pass from ‘Doaner,’ and my job was pretty easy from there, just putting it in the net.”

Buffalo went 2-for-4 on the power play; Montreal was 1-for-7.

“We had a lot of opportunities and if we got another power-play goal maybe that gives them less life,” Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. “That’s definitely a missed opportunity.”

Mattias Samuelsson gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 6:32 of the first period. While Benson drove to the net to create traffic in front of the net, Samuelsson trailed from the right before beating Dobes with a one-timer off Josh Norris’ cross-ice pass.

The Sabres appeared to have taken a two-goal lead at 8:02 when a video review determined that the puck had crossed the goal line when Dobes caught Jack Quinn’s shot. But Montreal successfully challenged that Buffalo rookie forward Konsta Helenius, who was making his Stanley Cup Playoff debut, interfered with Dobes on the play.

Newhook then tied it 1-1 at 10:08 with his sixth goal of the playoffs. He drove to the slot to take Jake Evans’ backhand pass from behind the goal line and snap a shot past Luukkonen.

Caufield put Montreal up 2-1 with a power-play goal at 19:47. He took a pass from Juraj Slafkovsky to the left of the net and skated in along the goal line before slipping a shot under Luukkonen’s left pad.

“We broke them down a bunch, had our looks,” Caufield said. “Their goalie made some big saves, kept them in it.”

Thompson tied it 2-2 with a power-play goal at 7:00 of the second period. His dump-in took an odd bounce off a stanchion along the boards on the left side and went in off Dobes’ right pad.

“Sometimes you want to just keep it simple, rim it, and try to get on the forecheck,” Thompson said. “I rimmed it and obviously saw it hit the glass and saw, kind of just scanned around looking for it and then a few guys put their hands up. So it’s a nice feeling when you see that.”

Said Suzuki, “We battled our way back to get the lead in the first, and then I thought the second period we controlled it pretty well. We just couldn’t find that next goal.”

NOTES: Benson is the 13th player in NHL history, and first Sabres player, to score a game-winning goal in the playoffs on his birthday. … Helenius played 12:53 and had three shots on goal. … Defenseman Luke Schenn played 7:04 and had two blocked shots in his Buffalo playoff debut. … Thompson, who has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in 10 games in the playoffs, is the sixth Sabres player to record at least 10 points in his first 10 playoff games. The others: Gilbert Perreault (six games), Tim Connolly (seven games), Pierre Turgeon (seven games), Rene Robert (seven games) and Rick Martin (10 games). … Caufield scored his 31st go-ahead goal of the regular season and playoffs combined, moving past Joe Sakic (30 in 1995-96 and 2000-01) for the fourth-most in NHL history. Brett Hull scored 42 go-ahead goals during the 1990-91 regular season and playoffs; Wayne Gretzky (1984-85) and Leon Draisaitl (2024-25) each scored 32.