Just call Alex Newhook “Mr. Game 7.”
Newhook scored at 11:22 of overtime on Monday, lifting the visiting Montreal Canadiens to a 3-2 victory against the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference second-round playoff matchup.
“It’s fun,” said Newhook, who now has two Game 7 overtime winners in this year’s postseason. “It’s why you play the game, and we played well enough to win.”
The Canadiens will play the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Thursday in Raleigh, N.C. The Hurricanes haven’t played since finishing their four-game sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers on May 9.
“We’re a confident group,” Newhook said. “We knew what we were capable of all year. I think we believed that we could keep going and bring this thing all the way, so it’s a big result and we’re looking forward.”
Newhook had the decisive goal in the third period of a 2-1 road win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the first round.
On Monday, he became the first player in Canadiens history to score a Game 7 overtime goal on the road.
Phillip Danault and Zachary Bolduc also scored while Jakub Dobes made 37 saves for the Canadiens, who last reached the conference finals in 2021, when they fell in the Stanley Cup Final to the Lightning.
“I’m sure everyone in Montreal is going nuts right now,” Newhook said. “We owe them a lot of credit. They showed up all season long and can’t wait to get back to Bell Centre for Game 3.”
Jordan Greenway and Rasmus Dahlin scored and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 22 saves for the Sabres, who rallied from a 2-0 deficit. Buffalo was trying to reach its first conference final since 2007.
“It hurts, but that pain will go away,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said. “I won’t let this one game define the season we had. I told the players how proud I was of them. This one game doesn’t define our season for us.”
The Canadiens took a 1-0 lead at 4:30 of the first period.
After the puck was dumped into the Buffalo zone, the Canadiens maintained possession on the forecheck and Alexandre Texier passed it out from behind the net to Kaiden Guhle in the left faceoff circle.
He sent the puck toward the crease, where it banked off the skate of Danault and was redirected across the goal line for his first goal of this postseason.
Later in the opening period, Montreal went on the game’s first power play after Zach Benson flipped the puck over the glass for a delay-of-game penalty.
The Canadiens kept the puck in the Buffalo zone nearly the entire two minutes before Bolduc scored with a one-timer from the right circle with five seconds left on the man advantage, extending the lead to 2-0 at 14:29.
Texier missed a chance to add to the lead when he hit the side of the net on a breakaway with just under five minutes left in the first period.
The Sabres cut it to 2-1 at 13:19 of the second.
Beck Malenstyn was below the goal line when he tried to pass the puck to the front of the crease, but it was deflected out to Mattias Samuelsson above the left hashmarks. Samuelsson took a wrist shot that glanced off the back of Greenway’s left leg and into the net.
The Canadiens killed the only Buffalo power play of the game early in the third period, but the Sabres later got even. Owen Power made a short pass from above the left circle to Dahlin at the bottom of the same circle, and he swept the puck into the net to tie it 2-2 at 6:27.
The teams ultimately went to overtime for the first time in the series.
“I’m so proud of the fans,” Ruff said. “I know that this hurts them as much as it hurts us.”
–Field Level Media
