Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 27: Vegas advances, Habs push Sabres to brink
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.
Thursday’s action saw two games which did not finish close, although one at least managed to entertain for the first 20 minutes.
Habs survive high-scoring first period to blow out Sabres
In a night lacking close games (at least in the men’s department), the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens at least gave us a period of entertaining hockey. The Sabres opened the scoring early again, with Jason Zucker deflecting a shot past Dobes, but what happened next was where it got crazy. Cole Caufield tied the game 4:31 later, and within the next 1:23 seconds, Josh Doan took the lead again and then Alexandre Texier tied it again. To add to the chaos, Konsta Helenius scored his first career playoff goal about two minutes after to give Buffalo the lead again.
But from that point on, it was all Canadiens. The Habs got three straight goals in the second period from Josh Anderson, Jake Evans and Nick Suzuki, and then Ivan Demidov capped off the win in the third with his first playoff goal. Montreal took Game 5 by a score of 6-3, and head home with the chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Final. Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky led the offense with three points each in the win.
Golden Knights cook Ducks to advance to West Final
The second-round series between the Anaheim Ducks and Vegas Golden Knights had its entertaining moments, especially when the Ducks were going pound for pound with the 2023 Stanley Cup champs. But Game 6 certainly wasn’t one of them. In fact, the game had barely started before Mitch Marner scored an incredible goal to give the Golden Knights the 1-0 lead. That was the first of a few goals for Vegas in the first period (courtesy of Brett Howden and Shea Theodore), meaning the Ducks only had a chance in this game for 1:02.
The Ducks did get one goal back midway through the second period with a goal from Mikael Granlund, but that was the only offense Anaheim mustered. Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice in the third period, and Vegas wins by a score of 5-1 victory. The Golden Knights advance to the Western Conference Final for the first time since their Cup win, and are set for a matchup with the Colorado Avalanche, their first since the second round of the 2021 playoffs. Dorofeyev, Marner and Theodore came up big with two points each, while Carter Hart stopped 31 of 32 in the win.