The Montreal Canadiens are heading to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. In a bizarre turn of events, the Canadiens didn't even muster double digits in shots, but beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 to win Game 7. The Habs will now head to Buffalo to face the Sabres in Game 1 on Wednesday night.
Nick Suzuki finally got the goal he needed these playoffs. The goal came thanks to hard work down low from Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson to win the opportunity to feed Kaiden Guhle. He simply fired it toward the goal, where Suzuki deflected it off JJ Moser and into the net.
Hockey is bizarre because earlier in the period, Juraj Slafkovsky had a picture-perfect shot go off the crossbar and wide. All of the excellent opportunities to score in the last two games that refused to go in, then a pinball event leads to Montreal taking a 1-0 lead.
The Canadiens went almost 27 minutes without a shot, but a shift midway through the third period sparked them. The next shift out for the line didn't have Caufield on it yet, because Alex Newhook hadn't switched out. Suzuki and Slafkovsky were on the ice, but Newhook hadn't yet had the chance to make the change. The puck funnelled to him behind the net, where he saw Andrei Vasilevskiy not hugging his post. Newhook knew exactly what he was doing when he banked it off the back of the Tampa Bay goalie and into the net. The Canadiens took a 2-1 lead with less than nine minutes left.
The Lightning would come hard looking for a chance to force a fifth overtime in the series. Dobes needed to be at his best. He was. He won the goaltender battle by a long shot. Dobes had a goals saved above expected of 1.43, while Vasilevskiy had a minus-1.23.
This group is just getting started. They are the youngest team in the NHL, yet they are already into the final eight, vying for the Stanley Cup. The next series will play out differently. The Suzuki line had to face some of the best players in the entire world. They had the toughest matchup they could imagine. They had to find a way to stop the great Nikita Kucherov and his experienced group.
The Sabres don't have that high-level greatness in their lineup, but they do have a very deep roster. Their third and fourth lines are almost indistinguishable from their first and second lines. They don't have the top-tier talent that the Lightning have, but they have the support talent throughout the lineup.