Canadiens host Sabres at Bell Centre with elimination-round history in mind

The Buffalo Sabres visit the Bell Centre for a Tuesday night meeting with the Montreal Canadiens, a game that comes with a postseason reminder still fresh. In May, Montreal eliminated Buffalo in a tightly contested second-round series, and the Sabres are likely to view this regular-season matchup as a chance to reassert themselves against a familiar opponent.

That spring series hinged on late drama. Montreal earned its series win when Alex Newhook scored an overtime goal in Game 7, capping a back-and-forth set where momentum repeatedly shifted. Buffalo, meanwhile, has pointed to what it believed to be a favorable statistical picture during that deciding game.

According to the game preview, the Sabres held a 39-25 shot advantage in Game 7. That number matters less for what happens next and more for what Buffalo can take into games like this one: if chances were there when the stakes were highest, the argument is that execution and results can swing in their direction with the right stretch of play.

The current meeting also carries the practical weight of matchup planning. Even when teams are no longer playing for a specific round of the playoffs, coaches still use games like this to test systems against opponents that already know their tendencies. The Canadiens and Sabres each learned a great deal about the other during last season’s series, from the timing of pressure to the most effective ways to generate offense.

For Montreal, the goal will be to translate postseason confidence into consistent regular-season structure. A series win built around a single overtime moment still requires daily habits, and the Canadiens will need to make sure that their forecheck, gap control, and transition choices do not fall back into the patterns that allowed Buffalo to generate an edge in Game 7 shots.

For Buffalo, the main challenge is doing the “process” work without letting a previous elimination reset its effort or urgency in the wrong way. The Sabres’ stated takeaway from last spring is opportunity, and the question for Tuesday is whether they can turn that into sustained puck possession and scoring-zone time rather than brief bursts.

What to watch next is how each team responds to the early game script. When two opponents have already met in a high-pressure series, early adjustments often determine how long the intensity lasts. If Buffalo can keep play in Montreal’s end for extended stretches, the Sabres’ shot-advantage theme from Game 7 becomes more than a memory, it becomes a blueprint. If Montreal forces turnovers at key moments, the Canadiens can make this feel less like a replay and more like a new chapter.