Winners, losers from Wednesday's Stanley Cup playoffs: Alex Lyon stays hot for Sabres

The second round of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs continued on Wednesday night with the Buffalo Sabres and Anaheim Ducks both picking up wins. Let's dig a little deeper into both of those games and pick out the biggest winners and losers from the night. 

Wednesday's winners

Alex Lyon, goalie, Buffalo Sabres. There is nothing more dangerous in the Stanley Cup playoffs than a hot goalie. Right now, Alex Lyon is the proverbial hot goalie. He was sensational again for the Sabres on Wednesday night as they picked up a 4-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens to take the first game of their second-round series.

Lyon has now won four of his first five starts this postseason since taking over for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, while posting save percentages of .960, .958, .931, .962 and .929. 

You will win a lot of games with that type of goaltending.

It is not always about having the best goalie. Sometimes it's just about having the right goalie that gets hot at the right time. 

Buffalo Sabres power play. If the Sabres had one potential weakness coming into this series, it was the performance of their power play. 

That started to change on Wednesday.

The Sabres' power play scored a pair of goals in their Game 1 win, and it turned out to be the difference in the game.

Bowen Byram had the second of the power-play goals, giving him four goals this postseason. 

Anaheim's young players. The Ducks have been one of the best stories in the NHL this season, and their young forward talent is legit. It should be the foundation of a contending team for the next six to eight years. That young talent shone on Wednesday with rookie Beckett Sennecke and third-year star Leo Carlsson providing the bulk of the offense in a 3-1 win over the Vegas Golden Knights. 

Starting goalie Lukas Dostal was also sensational, stopping 24-of-25 shots in the win. He missed his first career shutout by 5.6 seconds. 

The Ducks have now tied the series at one game apiece and successfully wrestled home-ice advantage away from the Vegas Golden Knights. 

Wednesday's losers

Lane Hutson, defenseman, Montreal Canadiens. Hutson is one of the best young defensemen in the NHL and a huge part of the Canadiens' success. But he had an absolutely brutal opening 10 minutes to Wednesday's game. He took a penalty 10 seconds into the game, rang a shot off the post when he had a chance to give Montreal an early lead, and then turned the puck over in the neutral zone, leading to Buffalo's first goal of the game.

Great player. Bad game. 

Vegas Golden Knights. All of them. The entire team. This was just a tough home-ice performance with a chance to put the Ducks into a 2-0 hole. Instead, they got into penalty trouble early on, generated no consistent offense against a vulnerable defense and were just simply outplayed from start to finish in all phases of the game. 

Forwards Mitch Marner and Brett Howden had especially off nights, both finishing the game as a minus-3, having been on the ice for all three Anaheim goals.