Game 31: Montreal Canadiens vs. Buffalo Sabres
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Sabres region: MSG Buffalo
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+
Before the season began, the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres were hoping to shake up the playoff race. Montreal had ended the 2023-24 season strong and seemed poised to come back after an off-season of work to move on to the next step in the rebuild. The Sabres had finished seven points out of a wild-card spot, a gap that seemed spannable for a team with another season of experience.
Things were going well for the Sabres through the opening quarter of the campaign. A relatively easy schedule in November saw them have a stretch with a 7-2 record, and on November 23 they occupied the third seed in the Atlantic Division. It’s been nothing short of a disaster since, as Buffalo has lost its last 10 games. Now instead of trying to claim a seeded placement, they enter a battle with Montreal tonight for seventh in the division.
Yesterday, owner Terry Pegula flew to Montreal to meet with his freefalling club. The message wasn’t a threat to tear things down if the results didn’t change, but reportedly to inform the team that changes wouldn’t be coming, that Pegula has faith that the current group, assembled from years of high draft picks, has the ability to turn things around and get back to winning.
| Canadiens | Statistics | Sabres |
|---|---|---|
| 11-16-3 | Record | 11-16-4 |
| 47.2% (28th) | Scoring-chances-for % | 48.5% (22nd) |
| 2.70 (24th) | Goals per game | 2.94 (21st) |
| 3.73 (32nd) | Goals against per game | 3.32 (26th) |
| 20.2% (18th) | PP% | 14.6% (30th) |
| 80.2% (14th) | PK% | 79.0% (18th0 |
| 1-0-0 | Head-to-Head Record | 0-1-0 |
The major issue for both of tonight’s combatants is their poor defence. They each carry young defence corps who give up a lot of chances, and haven’t had the same level of goaltending carry over from last year. That was apparent in the first meeting of this season with a combined 12 goals scored in what ended up being a 7-5 comeback win for Montreal. We know that Samuel Montembeault just recently returned to form. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has been average for the Sabres, which isn’t enough to compensate for the errors made in front of him.
During this 10-game slide, Buffalo is surrendering a league-worst 3.80 goals per game (about what Montreal carries as its season average, thanks to the debacle versus the Penguins erasing some recent progress). The Sabres have also scored the third-fewest goals per game in that time, at 2.30. It’s difficult to win games with such a disparity; impossibly difficult, as they have found out.
Buffalo is finding offence particularly tough to come by on the power play, scoring on just 7.7% of their man advantages in this streak (still not the worst in that time as the toothless Nashville Predators are running along at 5.8%). That will be welcome news for a Canadiens penalty kill that has seen a skid of its own, giving up six goals in the past four games. It’s putting too much pressure on the Habs to overcome that deficit, so holding the Sabres off the board in those situations would give them their best chance to run Buffalo’s losing streak up to 11.
