Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 14: Lightning stay alive; Sabres, Golden Knights advance
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop action as we witness 16 teams get whittled down to the one that will be crowned as the 2026 Stanley Cup champions. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop on everything that happens in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.
Three brilliant elimination games were on the docket on Friday night, and the action on the ice lived up to the excitement anticipated beforehand.
Lightning beat Canadiens in OT, force Game 7
The Tampa Bay Lightning had their backs against the wall in the hornet’s nest that is the Bell Centre in the postseason on Friday night, and in a game that was as hard-fought as it gets, the evened the series against the Montreal Canadiens and forced a Game 7.
Outstanding performances in net from Andrei Vasilevskiy and Jakub Dobes meant that this contest headed to overtime tied at 0-0, as both goalies and their respective penalty killing units rose to the occasion when called upon for the entirety of regulation.
At the 9:03 mark of the overtime period, Gage Goncalves buried a golden opportunity in close for his first goal of the series, and he set his team up with the chance to advance beyond the first round for the first time since the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Neither team was able to hold serve on home ice in the last two games, and the Bolts will need to find a way to do just that on Sunday. They may have help on the way, as head coach Jon Cooper told reporters ahead of Game 6 that captain Victor Hedman could be an option to return to the lineup “really soon.“
Sabres oust Bruins in dominant fashion
The Buffalo Sabres and their fans waited 14 long years for a return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and they’re not going away empty-handed.
The Sabres delivered the knockout blow to the Boston Bruins, winning for the third time in three opportunities on TD Garden ice in the series as Alex Tuch got the scoring started in the first period to give Buffalo a lead it would not relinquish.
Mattias Samuelsson made it 2-0 in the first before David Pastrnak earned the Bruins’ lone tally early in the second. Boston entered the third period down just a goal with the chance to send the series back to Buffalo with a comeback, but the Sabres quelled the Bruins’ push with relative ease.
Zach Benson gave his team an insurance goal early in the third before Josh Norris followed it up with an empty-net goal with 3:20 to go to seal Buffalo’s first playoff series win since 2007.
A series that featured plenty of post-whistle antics delivered even more of it when Charlie McAvoy delivered a vicious slash to Benson as the game unraveled.
The Sabres will face the winner of Game 7 between Montreal and Tampa Bay in the second round.
Vegas closes out Utah as Marner shines
Cover your ears, Toronto fans, but Mitch Marner just delivered a clutch performance to ensure his team advanced beyond the first round.
In his first season with the Vegas Golden Knights, Marner scored twice in a 5-1 win over the Utah Mammoth that sealed the series in six games.
Brett Howden’s fourth goal of the series, a total that includes his shorthanded overtime winner in Game 5, got the party started late in the first, and a relatively even game unfolded until Marner came up with a back-breaker late in the second period to put the Mammoth in a multi-goal hole with just 20 minutes left.
Utah did battle back a bit in the form of a Kailer Yamamoto tally with about 12 minutes to go, but a battle-tested Knights squad didn’t let any hope linger, as Colton Sissons answered to restore the two-goal lead just two minutes later before Marner’s second of the night and Cole Smith’s empty-netter put the game well out of reach.
The Golden Knights will draw the Anaheim Ducks in the second round after the Ducks finished off Edmonton in similar fashion on Thursday.