Canadiens top – Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki both pointed to the Canadiens’ five-on-five effort after their Game 4 loss to the Sabres—yet the top line’s playoff production still hasn’t shown up on the scoreboard. Buffalo’s Lindy Ruff also pressed his case about power plays a
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Canadiens stepped out of Game 4 with a loss on the ledger and the kind of playoff streak that makes every conversation harder to keep calm.
Cole Caufield tried anyway. Asked about Montreal’s five-on-five in the second and third periods of the Game 4 loss to the Sabres, he said he believed the team was starting to take over at even strength.
“I’ll watch the game back, but I think at five-on-five we started to take over in the second and third there,” Caufield said. “We obviously had our chances on the (power play). Hockey is a weird sport that way, where one bad bounce changes the outcome. We’ve got to swallow it and move on.”
He added that the Canadiens needed to keep finishing their chances.
“I think we liked our five-on-five game down the stretch there, we tilted the ice a little bit, so we’ve just got to finish on our chances and we’ll be fine.”
Moments later, the conversation shifted to Nick Suzuki—then tightened. When asked to rank his line’s performance at five-on-five in Game 4 among all 11 playoff games he had played, Suzuki hesitated.
“I don’t know,” Suzuki said initially. “I don’t know how much time we had, we probably had a lot more time in-zone on the PP, but I felt like we were kind of dying with plays off the rush or turning it over. We’ve got to find a way to produce, so I think it’s on all of us to be a little bit better.”
It wasn’t just a different player. It was a different set of parameters.
The Canadiens’ top line—the one that’s been among the league’s best forward combinations in the regular season—has played a little over 95 minutes at five-on-five in these playoffs. according to Natural Stat Trick. In that time. the line has been outscored 6-0 while producing a shade under 50 percent of the expected goals and high-danger chances.
That kind of gap between “process” and results can blur even the sharpest view from inside the rink. Still, Suzuki’s primary matchup at home in Game 4 was set against Josh Norris and the Sabres’ line centering Zach Benson and Josh Doan.
In the 6:12 where Suzuki shared the ice with Norris at five-on-five, the Canadiens generated 11 shot attempts and allowed none. The shots-on-goal picture was narrower—2-0 in favor of Montreal—and unblocked shots were 6-0. Yet Montreal controlled 100 percent of the expected goals in those minutes.
Across the full five-on-five game against all opposition, the Canadiens put up a 16-3 edge in attempts, a 9-3 advantage in unblocked attempts, and a 5-2 lead in shots on goal. They also led 3-1 in high-danger chances and controlled 62.03 percent of the expected goals in 9:16 of ice time.
A lot of it was happening. But the scoreboard hadn’t caught up.
If the Suzuki line produces another game like the one against Norris in Game 4—especially with Montreal controlling chances at even strength—the results likely will follow in Game 5, the Canadiens’ top players said in their own way: finish what you start.
There’s also another thread pulling at the series: the way special teams are being fought for in the moments that decide playoff swings.
Buffalo’s Lindy Ruff, speaking to reporters at their Montreal hotel before flying home to Buffalo on Wednesday, circled back to power plays the way he had after Game 4.
“I know Montreal’s got a good power play,” Ruff said, “but I think they’re going down easy.”
Ruff made sure to add that his players need to be careful with their sticks, and he said every team in the league will go down when they feel contact—especially in the playoffs, where one power play can decide between a win and a loss.
Ruff’s argument lands in a series where Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis has taken a different route. St. Louis complained about officiating in the media after a Game 4 loss at home to the Washington Capitals last year in the playoffs. But he hasn’t done so in these playoffs.
He even praised how the officials communicated their decisions to him in the playoffs, even if he doesn’t agree with them. In the end, St. Louis said complaining too much to the officials would be wasted energy because they never change their minds.
Still, he couldn’t let Ruff’s “going down easy” remark sit.
“Was he talking about his team, too?” St. Louis told reporters at the airport before flying to Buffalo. “That’s seeing it through his lens, so I’m not going to comment on how he sees things through his lens. That’s his vision of things.”
There’s history behind the temper underneath the words.
After Game 2 of the series, Ruff was asked about chatter around Canadiens rookie goalie Jakub Dobeš. Ruff replied, “That’s all stuff that happens inside of a game, I’m pretty sure Montreal guys skated by our guys too. I just don’t complain about it as much as they do, probably.”
Now his complaint box has filled up since then.
Even if the officiating debate runs hot, Montreal also has its own reminder that the margins are razor thin.
When St. Louis mentioned after Game 4 that the Canadiens had been “caught” by a bad bounce off the Bell Centre Zamboni door, he pointed to why that goal happened: the goalie had come out to play the puck.
What St. Louis was referring to was a goal on Jan. 10 against the Detroit Red Wings. In that play, it is Jacob Fowler who leaves his crease to play the puck, not Jakub Dobeš. But the bounce landing directly on the stick of Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond is what caused the Canadiens to institute a new rule on pucks shot into that corner.
“Stay in your net.”
And while that rule targets goaltenders’ positioning, the Canadiens’ nuance request didn’t stop there. The idea raised was that goaltenders should not just stay in their net on that play—they should also hug the near post.
That leads to another name people keep saying in this series: Kaiden Guhle.
Since the return to the lineup of Noah Dobson in Game 7 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Guhle has taken on the most visible burden. He has essentially become a rover. With Dobson playing primarily with Lane Hutson and Mike Matheson playing with Alexandre Carrier. Guhle’s shifts have been sprinkled throughout the defensive corps through the first four games of the series.
His primary partner has been Arber Xhekaj, and he has still seen significant minutes at five-on-five with just about everyone through those opening games.
This isn’t entirely new. It’s something the Canadiens have done routinely during the regular season, which made the adjustment easier now.
“I think if this would have been the first time it happened it maybe would have thrown the guys for a bit of a loop. ” Guhle said before Game 2 of the series. “It helps that we did that a little bit during the year. It’s the cards we’re dealt. Guys are fine with it. We don’t really have a choice, so we’ve got to do it.”.
St. Louis also described the situation as “the cards we were dealt” before Game 4, saying it wasn’t a surprise for the players.
“It’s not a surprise for our guys. I think we’ve done it all year when we were healthy. ” St. Louis said before Game 4. “They’re all important, they have different roles. Their starts on the ice on faceoffs are not the same. We try to maximize everybody’s strengths as much as we can. Them being used to (it); we go (with) five a lot. and whether it’s (Xhekaj) or (Jayden Struble). they’re giving us really good minutes too.”.
He added:
“They’re not uncomfortable with the way we’re running it, and I think doing that in the regular season at a certain point in time, that certainly helps.”
Why this micromanagement? The roster math: there are only two right-shot defencemen on the roster instead of three, and there are five defencemen trusted to play a regular shift instead of six.
That’s the context behind why Guhle has four defence partners. And why, for a team fighting for even-strength production, the defensive setup still needs constant tweaking.
The Canadiens find themselves tied 2-2 in the second round of the playoffs, and they’re doing it with a defence that requires this degree of micromanagement. There is also a total lack of five-on-five production from the top forward line.
But the numbers from Game 4 show that the chances—attempts, unblocked looks, high-danger chances—have been there. The results just haven’t followed yet.
The sting of the series is sharper because they’ve already accomplished plenty in spite of those obstacles.
And it’s there, in the gap between what the Canadiens are generating and what the top line has delivered, that the series tension lives heading into Game 5—because if the even-strength work finally lands where it’s supposed to, the scoreboard could catch up fast.
Montreal Canadiens Buffalo Sabres Game 4 Game 5 Cole Caufield Nick Suzuki Lindy Ruff Martin St. Louis Jakub Dobeš Noah Dobson Kaiden Guhle five-on-five power play
Top line not scoring again… love it.
So they “took over” at 5-on-5 but still lost? That’s wild. Maybe they meant they took over the ice but not the net??
Caufield saying the bounces were bad like that explains everything lol. If they had more power plays they would’ve scored, right? Also Sabres refs probably helping them or whatever.
Lindy Ruff talking about power plays like that’s the whole thing. Montreal needs to finish chances… okay but also how do you “finish” when your top line disappears on the scoreboard? I swear it’s always the same story, even when they look decent.