Alex Newhook scored at 11:22 of overtime to lift the visiting Montreal Canadiens to a 3-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 of an Eastern Conference second-round playoff matchup on Monday.
Newhook took a shot from above the left faceoff circle that hit the net off a rush. Montreal also needed seven games to decide its first-round matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Newhook had the decisive goal in that set, too.
The Canadiens will play the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Thursday in Raleigh, N.C.
Phillip Danault and Zachary Bolduc also scored while Jakub Dobes made 37 saves for the Canadiens, who last reached the conference finals in 2021, when they fell in the Stanley Cup Final to the Lightning.
Jordan Greenway and Rasmus Dahlin scored and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 22 saves for the Sabres, who rallied from a 2-0 deficit. Buffalo was trying to reach its first conference final since 2007.
The Canadiens took a 1-0 lead at 4:30 of the first period.
After the puck was dumped into the Buffalo zone, the Canadiens maintained possession on the forecheck and Alexandre Texier passed it out from behind the net to Kaiden Guhle in the left faceoff circle.
He sent the puck toward the crease, where it banked off the skate of Danault and was redirected across the goal line for his first goal of this postseason.
Later in the opening period, Montreal went on the game’s first power play after Zach Benson flipped the puck over the glass for a delay-of-game penalty.
The Canadiens kept the puck in the Buffalo zone nearly the entire two minutes before Bolduc scored with a one-timer from the right circle with five seconds left on the man-advantage, extending the lead to 2-0 at 14:29.
Texier missed a chance to add to the lead when he hit the side of the net on a breakaway with just under five minutes left in the first period.
The Sabres cut it to 2-1 at 13:19 of the second.
Beck Malenstyn was below the goal line when he tried to pass the puck to the front of the crease, but it was deflected out to Mattias Samuelsson above the left hashmarks. Samuelsson took a wrist shot that glanced off the back of Greenway’s left leg and into the net.
The Canadiens killed the only Buffalo power play of the game early in the third period, but the Sabres later got even when Owen Power made a short pass from above the left circle to Dahlin at the bottom of the same circle and he swept the puck into the net to tie it 2-2 at 6:27.
