The Athletic: Buffalo Sabres vs. Montreal Canadiens 2026 NHL Stanley Cup playoffs preview
A battle of two exciting up-and-coming teams should be another extremely close divisional matchup with the Sabres having a very slight edge.
www.nytimes.com
The first round felt like proof Rasmus Dahlin can deliver even more when it counts. Timothy T. Ludwig / Imagn Images
This is new. The last time the fight for the Atlantic Division crown didn’t feature a team from Florida was 2019. Add Boston to that and it’s 2017.
This indeed feels like a changing of the guard: Two future powers emerging from a rebuild ready to prove they’re next — and dispatching a member of the old guard along the way.
It’s also two hockey-mad cities bursting with passion, cheering for what feels like destiny. Whether that awaits the Sabres or the Canadiens, the series deciding it has all the makings of a surefire classic.
The odds
As expected for two on-the-rise teams coming off monstrous seasons and impressive first rounds, this one looks like it’s going to be really close. While we lean a little bit toward Buffalo’s direction, the margins here are razor-thin in what projects to be the closest series of the playoffs so far.
That’s on paper, anyway. It’s hard to imagine a series being any closer than what we just witnessed from the Canadiens and Lightning, but the early expectation here is a similar vibe. It would not be a shock to see this matchup go the distance with not much separating either team at the moment.
The key for both: how much both the Sabres and Canadiens seem to be growing in real time. Now that’s going to be put to the test against each other.
The numbers
How tightly matched are Montreal and Buffalo? Just one goal separates these teams’ Net Ratings.
At five-on-five, these teams had some regular-season similarities, like shot suppression. Montreal’s shot quality and goals against were a shade higher, and some post-Olympic trends contributed to that. The Canadiens were more porous from that point on, while Buffalo tightened up both at even strength and in short-handed situations.
The Sabres maintained that in Round 1, but also weren’t tested a ton. The Canadiens were and impressively responded with just 2.27 expected goals against at five-on-five (and only allowed 1.63 goals per 60). Now, Montreal has the slight edge with a plus-14 Defensive Rating.
These teams are also closely matched on the other end of the ice. The Sabres’ transition game and strong forecheck powered their scoring rate to fourth in the league in the regular season. Montreal finished just behind in fifth.
Buffalo had slightly more support under the hood, especially down the stretch. And that carried into Round 1 against the Bruins. The Canadiens’ offense was a lot more limited against Tampa Bay — just take their nine-shot outing in Game 7. Expand out to the full series, and it was a trend: Montreal’s scoring chance generation and goal scoring didn’t pop as much in Round 1. But it was also that type of close, tense matchup. So the pressure is on for the Canadiens to adapt, if necessary, because Buffalo could up the scoring pace in Round 2.
The big question
Can Montreal’s top line be the difference?
Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovský were one of the best first lines in the NHL during the regular season. They outshot and outchanced their competition by a wide margin (driving 56.1 percent of expected goals) and crushed them 33-14 on the scoreboard at five-on-five. This line was incredibly fast, creative and skilled when attacking off the rush, but also displayed an underrated ability to hold onto pucks down low and generate Grade-A chances off the cycle.
This trio showed some strong flashes on the power play in Round 1 — especially with Slafkovský’s Game 1 hat trick — but they were completely nullified at even strength by Tampa Bay. Suzuki mustered just two five-on-five points in the first round, while Caufield and Slafkovský were completely blanked over seven games.
This wasn’t just a matter of bad shooting luck, either; they were stifled in terms of chance creation. Suzuki’s line was essentially break-even on the shot clock, so it’s not as if they were getting wrecked territorially, but they earned only 41.1 percent of scoring chances, generated a measly 1.60 expected goals for per 60, and were outscored 5-2.
What stood out throughout the series was the Lightning doing an excellent job of limiting the line’s ability to drive controlled entries into the offensive zone. Tampa Bay’s defenders gapped up very well with Jon Cooper’s team being one of the best in the league at applying backpressure, which forced Suzuki’s line to dump the puck in more frequently. The Lightning — one of the league’s most structurally sound teams at orchestrating five-player breakouts because of how deep their forwards come to help — recovered the majority of those pucks and turned them into clean breakouts going the other way.
In fairness, it isn’t completely surprising that Suzuki’s line took a bit of a step back at five-on-five; the Lightning’s big dogs had a decisive edge in value going into the series. And it wasn’t all bad, as they limited Nikita Kucherov’s damage at even strength with just a 2-1 deficit in over 45 head-to-head minutes.
Round 2 is different because the Canadiens’ top guys project as the best players in this series. The burning question now is whether it can lead to stronger five-on-five results. Montreal’s forward depth compensated for the top line’s fall-off in Round 1 — Alexandre Texier, Kirby Dach, Zack Bolduc and Josh Anderson all had big moments offensively — but it’s fair to wonder if that’s completely sustainable.
Texier’s line, for example, was up 6-2 in goals, but they got crushed from a play-driving perspective, controlling only 36.3 percent of shot attempts and 31.9 percent of scoring chances. If they keep getting hemmed in like that, there’s a good chance their production will dry up in Round 2. Buffalo’s depth is also stronger on paper than Tampa’s was, which increases the pressure on the Suzuki line to win its minutes.
The interesting part about Suzuki’s line facing off against the Sabres is that Lindy Ruff may not match a specific line or defense pair against them, unlike Cooper, who religiously matched Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli against them. Buffalo’s top-four defensemen handled a nearly identical spread of the head-to-head minutes against David Pastrnak in Round 1, and Ruff didn’t chase a particular forward line matchup either.
The X-factor
Can Buffalo fix its power play?
A team can’t overrely on power-play scoring in the playoffs, especially later in rounds. But it’s meant to be some sort of advantage.
The Sabres just didn’t get that memo in April.
Buffalo’s power play was never perfect this year, but it became a momentum killer down the stretch, going 0-for-22 to end the regular season. And it wasn’t much better in Round 1. There was just too much going wrong: predictability up front, an over-reliance on Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin, too few puck retrievals, and too many puck battles lost. Regroups were another nightmare altogether.
At least in Game 4, the team gained some traction with the help of Noah Östlund. Then they actually broke through in Game 5. But going 1-for-24 in a series and only breaking even in those situations 1-1 isn’t something to celebrate. And the team will likely be without Östlund all series.
The good news is Montreal’s penalty kill allows a lot of scoring chances back, so the Sabres will have their chances. The bad news is that the goaltending handles that workload really well and the Canadiens can do some damage on the power play. So it’s back to the drawing board to figure out how to counter that.
The rosters
For both clubs, it’s obvious who the teams’ engines are: a pair of Norris-caliber defensemen who run the offense, control the pace and don’t sacrifice anything without the puck. Rasmus Dahlin and Lane Hutson are the best players in this series, the chess masters running point who could very well dictate which team advances. Everything flows through them.
While the two are near identical in terms of projected value, it’s Dahlin whose opening round felt more weighty. The Sabres earned a staggering 67 percent of expected goals with him on the ice, a mark well north of any Sabres regular. Dahlin has been a beast since returning from Sweden in November and was arguably the best defenseman in the league from that point on. The first round felt like proof that he can deliver even more when it counts.
Being able to do that was a genuine concern for Hutson given his size, but he too brought the heat with a Net Rating right in line with his gaudy regular-season mark. Hutson’s six points in seven games were impressive, and while his 53 percent xG rate doesn’t exactly leap off the page, the degree of difficulty coming against a stacked Lightning team is an extremely important consideration.
Hutson may not have played matchup minutes, but even Tampa Bay’s second line as a primary matchup is no joke. Many have rightfully pointed to Dach’s minutes as a major inflection point for the series, but it was that line’s time with Hutson specifically that helped drive that. In just 21 minutes together, Dach and Hutson were up 3-1 with 82 percent of expected goals. That was a difference-maker.
The rest of the defense corps offers a lot of intrigue on both sides.
Noah Dobson’s return is massive as it pushes all of the Canadiens into a more appropriate slot. His puck-moving ability will be a boost on the shutdown pair and on a stacked pair with Hutson whenever Montreal needs a goal. Dobson should be able to provide more of a two-way return with Mike Matheson, who did his job defensively in Round 1 but didn’t offer anything with the puck. Assuming they go back to it, Carrier and Kaiden Guhle were a strong pair together.
On the Buffalo side, Mattias Samuelsson offers a similar level of value to Dobson as Buffalo’s No. 2, but with a more defensive slant as Dahlin’s sidekick. He’s terrific at two things that matter in the postseason: limiting chances off the rush and getting the puck out after retrieving it.
Arguably more pivotal is how the second pair operates. Bowen Byram has shown a knack for elevating in the playoffs and outscored opponents heavily with Owen Power. But the duo did play some firewagon hockey, allowing one of the highest chance counts in the league during the first round. The offense made up for it, but as the Sabres go deeper that pair needs to get tighter.
Up front, the Canadiens are a lot more top-heavy than the Sabres, whose top nine is among the league’s most balanced outfits.
Things will be difficult with Östlund on the shelf as he was one of the team’s best defensive play-drivers this season, but the Sabres are uniquely equipped to handle his absence with their depth. Peyton Krebs’s play will be a major part of that after an exceptional first round where he scored six points and greatly outscored the Bruins while riding shotgun on the top line. He may not be rated well here, but he’s certainly playing well, earning a plus-1.0 Net Rating so far. Only his linemates Alex Tuch and Thompson were better among Buffalo’s forwards and the trio outscored the Bruins 6-0.
The Sabres only had one forward, Ryan McLeod, not out-chance Boston in the first round which bodes well here. It was the opposite for Montreal, where only Slafkovský and Jake Evans were above 50 percent in xG.
Obviously, those are two very different levels of opponents, but it speaks to part of the mismatch here where Buffalo’s top nine looks significantly deeper. The Sabres can create waves of pressure that the Canadiens may struggle to handle outside the top line. Buffalo is growing in real time and the continued emergence of Josh Doan (62 percent xG) and Zach Benson (57 percent) as top-six spark plugs is a major part of that. This group has the power to tilt the ice and that’s only become better since the trade deadline.
The Canadiens will need some of that real-time growth from Demidov in particular, who had a quietly disappointing playoff debut. His 49 percent xG rate was solid, relatively speaking, but just a single power-play assist in seven games isn’t going to cut it. The Canadiens didn’t score a single five-on-five goal with Demidov on the ice.
That meant a lot of damage from the bottom six, which may prove difficult to count on. With Suzuki or Demidov off the ice representing Montreal’s bottom-six minutes, the Canadiens outscored Tampa Bay 9-4, but also only managed a 45 percent xG rate. That’s a tough split to sustain.
Montreal may have a fleet of guys capable of elevating play when it counts; it was the depth that was the difference against a strong Lightning team. The Sabres look perfectly qualified to handle that in what projects to be an even series.
The key matchup
Alex Lyon vs. Jakub Dobeš
Before the season started, few would have predicted that Alex Lyon and Jakub Dobeš would be pitted against each other as the undisputed starters for Round 2.
Lyon, a journeyman 33-year-old who’s on his fifth NHL team in the last six seasons, was part of a three-goalie rotation in Buffalo. He and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen eventually separated from Colten Ellis, and both were on fire from December onward. Lyon and UPL finished the year with nearly identical numbers, but since UPL faltered in Game 2, it’s been Lyon’s net in the playoffs. The fiery, eclectic netminder has been sensational, pitching a .955 save percentage in the postseason.
On the other end of the ice, Dobeš has been the hottest goaltender in the NHL down the stretch. The 24-year-old rookie has saved a league-high 15.5 goals above expected since the trade deadline and outdueled his idol Andrei Vasilevskiy, saving six goals above expected in Round 1.
The rise of both goalies has been a terrific story, and it’ll make for a thrilling Round 2 battle.
The bottom line
It’s a new era in the Atlantic Division. Out with the old guard and in with two exciting up-and-coming teams. Now it’s time to see how the Canadiens and Sabres match up head-to-head. Get ready for what should be another extremely close divisional matchup.
