Sabres have one win left to reach first East final since 2007
One game for everything. Buffalo meets Montreal in Game 7 with the winner advancing to face the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final.
The Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens are set for a Game 7 showdown to settle their Eastern Conference second-round matchup on Monday night. The Sabres scored seven unanswered goals in an 8-3 win in Game 6 on Saturday night in Montreal, forcing the deciding game back in Buffalo. "It's probably the worst game we've played, so we're only going up," Canadiens forward Nick Suzuki said.
"It's going to be important for guys to look at themselves in the mirror and say we've got an opportunity to win one game and advance to the third round. So, we'll take that any time throughout the season. " Montreal also needed seven games to decide its first-round matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning .
The Canadiens missed a chance to clinch in Game 6 at home in that round, but went to the Sunshine State and pulled out a 2-1 victory. "We're a team that is really resilient," Suzuki said. "We've been in this situation already in the first round, so we have experience.
We just have to win one game. That's the focus right now. " Suzuki thinks the Canadiens may have put too much pressure on themselves to clinch at home, where thousands of fans surrounded their home arena hours before puck drop in hopes of celebrating victory.