Montreal knocked Tage Thompson off his game and evened the series. The Canadiens beat the Sabres 5-1 on Friday in Game 2, with Alexandre Carrier cashing in on a turnover after Thompson lost his balance almost four minutes into the third period inside the Montreal blue line.
The loss left the best-of-seven second-round series tied 1-1 and pushed Thompson's scoreless streak to seven games. He finished minus-4, a rough night for the Sabres' leading scorer and offensive catalyst in front of 19,070 at the Bell Centre.
Thompson did not have much to say for himself afterward. He said he was “just fighting it tonight,” then added that “the puck bounces every time I try to touch it, just can’t get a handle on it, and it ends up in the back of your net. Just got to be better.” When asked whether he was playing through an injury, he began to answer, “I don't think t” before stopping short.
That frustration fit the night in Montreal, where Alex Newhook and Mike Matheson scored early to take the crowd out of the game and set the tone before the Canadiens pulled away. The result came after the Sabres beat Montreal 4-2 on Wednesday, but Friday looked nothing like that Game 1 response.
Lindy Ruff said Thompson was trying to force the issue. “He was really trying to press and sometimes when you press, it didn’t get any better tonight for him, for sure,” the coach said. Ruff added that Thompson can help even when the puck is not going in, saying, “You make a difference by setting teammates up or screening (the goalie).” He also said Thompson had seven points in the playoffs and might be nursing an injury that has made it harder for him to handle the puck, and noted that he had been using him less often in the faceoff dot.
Ruff did not hide how much of the game he thought was decided by mistakes. “Three or four of the goals were just the result of bad puck play,” he said, and later added, “I’m not defending his game tonight. We all agree he needs to be better.” Rasmus Dahlin was even blunter about the Sabres' overall effort, calling it an “awful game” and “not acceptable.”
For Buffalo, the concern is bigger than one bad turnover or one cold night. Thompson scored two goals late in the Sabres' first game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and since then the offense has not been nearly as sharp, which matters because he is supposed to drive it. Montreal has already shown it can drag opponents into uncomfortable games, and after surviving the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games, it has reclaimed home-ice momentum in a series that is now up for grabs again.
