Sabres no longer look overwhelmed on home ice

The Buffalo Sabres won the first game of their second-round series against the Montreal Canadiens with a 4-2 victory Wednesday night. Ryan McLeod and Josh Doan scored for the Sabres while Alex Lyon made 26 saves to get the win.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL defenseman Colby Cohen discuss the Sabres’ Game 1 victory over the Habs and how Buffalo performed on home ice.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It was a game where Buffalo felt more in control. A couple of goal posts helped them out in the first period, but the Sabres grabbed hold of a 2-0 lead in the first period then really never let it go. They seemed to be in control.

I thought in the first two games against Boston on home ice in the first round, Buffalo felt overwhelmed by the excitement of the whole thing and they didn’t have their best game. But as that series went on, they got better and better, and I think it’s a very encouraging sign for Sabres fans that they started this series on the right foot.

Colby Cohen: I think there’s a couple things at play here. One of the differences we see in this year’s playoffs is that the team that’s coming off the rest has looked better than in years past, where we’ve always had that “rest vs. rust” debate, where a team looks like they have their hair on fire without any time to think about it, and they catch the team that’s been sitting and waiting off guard.

Going into Wednesday’s game, I felt like there was an opportunity for Buffalo to take advantage of an emotional letdown for Montreal, knowing how hard their Games 5, 6 and 7 were against the Tampa Bay Lightning. When you think about the emotional rollercoaster of how those games ended, there was an opportunity for Buffalo to smell a little bit of blood in the water in Game 1, and like good teams do, they smelled the blood and they really put their foot down on Montreal.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…