Canadiens stun Buffalo crowd with wild postgame scene after taking 3-2 series lead
Habs fans flooded the building in Buffalo Thursday night, and Martin St-Louis watched Montreal walk out with a 6-3 win and a 3-2 series lead.
The scene outside the arena looked nothing like a road game. Red sweaters everywhere. Oles bouncing off the concourse walls.
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One clip from outside the building captured hundreds of Habs fans chanting in unison, surrounded by Buffalo signage they were clearly ignoring.
You could see the crowd swelling, phones up, security pinned to the wall as the chant grew. It looked less like a road trip and more like a home game in disguise.
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Nick Suzuki ran the show on the ice. The captain put up a goal and two assists, with a power play marker mixed in, and skated 20:45 in the win.
Juraj Slafkovsky kept pace with three helpers of his own. Ivan Demidov added a goal and an assist, plus five shots on goal in the win.
Bell Centre gets a closeout shot Saturday
Cole Caufield, Josh Anderson, Jake Evans and Alexandre Texier all chipped in goals. Lane Hutson quarterbacked the back end with two assists and 20:33 of ice time.
The series now swings back to Montreal for Saturday. Game 6. A chance to bury Lindy Ruff's group on home ice and skip the flight back to Buffalo entirely.
The Sabres finished the regular season fourth overall with 109 points and a plus-47 goal differential. None of that matters now. They're one loss from going home.
That's the part that should sting in western New York. A 50-win team built to push deep is suddenly leaning on a Game 7 it doesn't want to play.
The Canadiens dropped Game 5 at home Tuesday, a 3-2 result that gave the series back to Buffalo for a night. The response was a four-goal road blowout 48 hours later.
Ruff's bench got nothing from its top end on the night. Buffalo coughed up six goals and watched the road crowd celebrate after every single one.
Saturday is the kind of night that defines a postseason. Win it, and the run keeps going. Lose it, and a fan base that just took over an opposing arena flies right back into it.
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| POLL | ||
MAI 15 | 954 ANSWERS Canadiens stun Buffalo crowd with wild postgame scene after taking 3-2 series lead Will the Canadiens close out the Sabres Saturday at the Bell Centre? | ||
| Yes | 686 | 71.9 % |
| No | 268 | 28.1 % |
| LIST OF POLLS | ||
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HIER
29 MAI 2026
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| B | P | PTS | ||
| Taylor Hall | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Logan Stankoven | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Jackson Blake | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Seth Jarvis | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nikolaj Ehlers | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexander Nikishin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Phillip Danault | - | - | - | |
| STATS COMPLÈTES | ||||