Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 23: Canadiens, Ducks swing series’ with home ice wins

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.

Sunday’s action saw home ice come through in a big way, with one team taking a series lead, and the other tying theirs.

Montreal overwhelm Sabres in blowout win

The Buffalo Sabres brought plenty of chaos to KeyBank Center as the city of Buffalo continues to cherish playoff action. That worked in Game 1, but in Game 2, the Montreal Canadiens overcame it to tie the series. But Montreal carries a completely different energy at the Bell Centre. So how will that building play into the series?

The answer for Game 3 was: heavily in Montreal’s favour. While the Sabres quieted the building super early as Tage Thompson scored 53 seconds in, the game was basically all Habs from that point on. Alex Newhook tied the game later in the frame, and then got another three straight goals from Cole Caufield, Zachary Bolduc and Juraj Slafkovsky in the second. Rasmus Dahlin scored to get one back for the Sabres, but the Habs added two more goals in the third from Kirby Dach and Newhook again to cap off the 6-2 win.

Of course, the action wasn’t only with the goals, as the two teams combined for 80 penalty minutes and 10 power plays, highlighted by some goalie interference and 50 PIMs in the final three minutes of the game.

With the win, the Canadiens take a 2-1 series lead, with a chance to bury the dagger further on home ice in Game 4 on Tuesday. Newhook had two goals, Caufield had a goal and an assist, Jake Evans and Lane Hutson had two assists, and Jakub Dobes stopped 26 of 28 shots for the win.

Ducks power play finally wakes up to tie series

The Anaheim Ducks‘ power play struggles wasn’t as big of a talking point as its been with the Sabres, but they haven’t exactly been in top form either. Entering Sunday night, the Ducks were 0-for-11 in their second-round series with the Vegas Golden Knights, and was a big reason why Anaheim was down 2-1 in the series despite dominated the play for large stretches.

But in Game 4, the Ducks’ power play finally had life. Beckett Sennecke opened the scoring midway through the first period on the man advantage, and after a quick tying goal from Pavel Dorofeyev two minutes later, Mikael Granlund gave the Ducks the lead again five minutes later thanks to a leaky goal on Carter Hart.

Brett Howden tied for the playoff lead in goals with his seventh to tie the game again in the second, but once again, the Ducks power play came up clutch. Alex Killorn drove to the net and threw the puck on net, and it found its way through Hart yet again to give the Ducks the lead. Ian Moore added to the lead with his first of the playoffs, and while Tomas Hertl made it interesting with his first goal in 29 games to draw the game within one with a minute to go, that was as close as the Golden Knights would get, and the Ducks would walk away with a 4-3 win.

With the win, the Ducks tie the series, and both teams go back to Vegas for Game 5 on Tuesday in what is now a best-of-three. Killorn and Sennecke had one-goal, one-assist games and Cutter Gauthier had three assists in the win, while Mitch Marner assisted on all three Golden Knights goals to take the playoff lead in scoring with 16 points.