Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach scored, and Jakub Dobes made 12 saves for the Canadiens, who’re the No. 3 seed within the Atlantic.
“Buffalo has a very good rush recreation. You actually need to handle the puck via the impartial zone, which I believed for essentially the most half we did,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis stated. “However I really feel like it’s a must to handle the puck within the O-zone too. Lots of 50-50 battles, you’ve obtained to be on the appropriate aspect of it … so we’ve to do higher there.
“I felt our high guys obtained extra touches in house and stuff. And that is what I preferred. And I preferred that we battled. It wasn’t the beginning that we wished within the recreation, within the collection. However we will maintain going.”
Recreation 2 of the best-of-7 collection will likely be right here on Friday (7 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).
Doan gave Buffalo a 1-0 lead at 4:31 of the primary interval. After Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson fell down attempting to make a play on the puck within the impartial zone, Benson went in on a 2-on-1 with Doan. Benson’s leg kick within the left face-off circle fooled Dobes into considering he was going to shoot, and he as a substitute despatched a move behind the skates of sliding Montreal defenseman Noah Dobson over to Doan, who was driving to the again door for the tap-in.
“I feel we wished an emphasis on attending to their ‘D’ early and attempting to pressure turnovers,” Doan stated. “Clearly, ‘Benny’ does an unbelievable job of that all through each recreation, however nice begin by him there, and I feel that obtained the constructing on its ft.”