This was supposed to be the night Montreal closed it out. The Bell Centre was rocking, the Canadiens jumped on Buffalo early, and after a soft start in net the Sabres were staring elimination dead in the face barely ten minutes into the first period. The streets outside were already a party.
A live read on the vibe in Montreal as the early lead piled up.
The streets of Montreal look completely insane. This is awesome. Buffalo just can’t get a save
Then it got truly insane. Montreal had 3 shots on goal and 3 goals to show for it — the kind of stat line that breaks goalies and breaks series. UPL was getting cooked, Tage Thompson took a brutal penalty, and it had every fingerprint of a closeout game where Buffalo just couldn't buy a save.
The clip that captured the absurdity of Montreal's shot-to-goal conversion in the first.
And then the Sabres just... took the game. Whatever was said on the bench, whatever switch flipped, Buffalo erased the deficit and kept piling on. Jack Quinn turned into the best player on the ice. By the end the Sabres had hung 8 goals on Montreal in their own building in a game where their season was on the line. After getting waxed at home in Game 5, that is a wild bounce-back.
Quinn's night in highlight form.
So now it's Game 7 in Buffalo on Monday, and good luck getting anyone to look away. One of these teams just played the game of their season on the road in a building that was ready to riot. The other still has home ice and the fanbase that's been waiting forever for a moment exactly like this. Cinematic is the right word.
The full arc of the comeback in one clip.