Canadiens Hold Off Sabres for Hard-Fought 4-2 Home Win

For Montreal Canadiens forward Jake Evans, the eighth time was the charm. The rugged Habs forward finally found the twine on his career- (and game-)high eighth shot of the night to seal a 4-2 victory for the home side over the visiting Buffalo Sabres on Monday night. Granted, it was an empty-net goal, but it was just as important as any other in a tightly contested game between two division rivals.

Game Recap

It didn’t start out that way, though. The Canadiens dominated the game in its early going, outshooting the Sabres 14-6 through one, with Oliver Kapanen opening the scoring near the period’s halfway mark on a nice play that started with defenseman Alexandre Carrier winning a puck battle along the boards and kicking it to Alex Newhook, who found Ivan Demidov. Driving to the front of the net, Demidov seemingly lost the puck, but it found Kapanen who backhanded it past goalie Alex Lyon, who had been starting in place of the injured Ukko-Pekka Luukonen, for the 1-0 goal.

Both teams entered the contest banged up, with the Sabres also missing forward Josh Norris and defenseman Michael Kesselring among others. For the Canadiens’ part, both Kirby Dach and Patrik Laine are day-to-day, while defenseman Kaiden Guhle is out 4-6 weeks after sustaining a lower-body injury in last week’s dramatic overtime win over the Nashville Predators.

Despite injuries to both sides, the Canadiens kept decisive pressure on until five minutes into the second. Following another extended stay in the Sabres’ zone, defenseman Lane Hutson tried breaking out of his own by passing to Joe Veleno. A bouncing puck led to a giveaway, with Sabres forward Jiri Kulich gaining possession and ultimately backhanding it past Habs goalie Jakub Dobes after a give-and-go with Zach Benson. Just like that, the ice shifted in the other direction, the Sabres eventually outshooting the Habs 32-31 on the night.