Suzuki Nhl: Sabres, Golden Knights, Canadiens Chase Game 6 Wins
The suzuki nhl playoff slate on Friday put the Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens and Vegas Golden Knights in three Game 6s with a chance to end their first-round series before Game 7. Buffalo was carrying the heaviest burden, trying to win its first playoff series since 2007 after losing Game 5 in overtime at home.
Buffalo’s 2007 drought
Lindy Ruff asked his team to stay with the same approach after the Sabres dropped Game 5 to Boston. “We trusted the process to get to this point,” Ruff said after the loss. “You’ve got to continue to trust it. It’s a team [that for] a whole year has won together and lost together, but embrace this moment – and somebody for us is going to be a big time player. I can’t tell you who that is, but somebody will.”
The Sabres had converted one of 20 power-play chances against Boston entering Game 6, and they were also coming off a 0-for-22 finish on the power play to close the regular season. Those numbers left little margin against the Bruins, especially with Buffalo still chasing its first series win since the second round in 2007 against the New York Rangers.
Vegas after double overtime
Vegas carried a different kind of edge into Game 6 in Utah. The Golden Knights beat the Utah Mammoth 5-4 in double overtime in Game 5 on Wednesday night, with Pavel Dorofeyev scoring three goals and Brett Howden netting the short-handed winner. John Tortorella said after that game, “It really came up big for us tonight,” after a night in which Vegas killed all five of Utah’s power plays.
That penalty-kill work mattered because Utah had converted one of 14 power plays in the series entering Game 6. The Mammoth’s first playoff run since moving to Salt Lake City last season had turned into a close series, and Vegas arrived with the kind of late-game pressure that has shaped its first nine NHL seasons.
Canadiens and Bruins pressure
Montreal also entered Friday with a chance to close out its series against Tampa Bay, while Boston had already pushed Buffalo to the edge. Three Game 6s on the same night meant one result could swing a series into a quick finish or send it to a deciding Game 7, and the Sabres were the team still waiting longest for that next step.
Buffalo’s path was the most loaded with history. The franchise had spent 14 years without a playoff game before its first Atlantic Division title this spring, and now it had to finish the job against a Bruins team that had already forced overtime once in the series. For the Sabres, Friday was less about style than survival.
What happened in those Game 6s would decide whether Buffalo finally broke through after 2007, whether Vegas kept extending its postseason run, and whether Montreal moved on without needing another night. The pressure was on the teams that were one win from advancing and one loss from another round of churn.
