With nothing to play for but riding the season out the Montreal Canadiens and BUffalo Sabres hooked up Wednesday night in Buffalo for a match.
Robin Lehner made 31 saves to help the Sabres edge the Habs, 2-1.
Montreal clinched their playoff seed Monday and have known they would face the New York Rangers in the first round.
So, focus and keeping healthy have been priorities.
“We’ve done a pretty good job up to date of staying focused and trying to get better as a team, so sometimes you’ve got to give your team a pass,” Montreal coach Claude Julien said. “Tonight wasn’t a terrible game; it was just an ordinary game in our minds.”
The Sabres are playing for next season and Rasmus Ristolainen and Tyler Ennis scored for Buffalo in the win.
“Obviously, I like the result, but I also liked how we played the game and played for the 60 minutes,” Sabres head coach Dan Bylsma said. “I thought we played the way we had to play, we outcompeted them. They certainly had a couple opportunities, but I liked the way our guys played for 60 minutes.”
Buffalo had taken a 2-0 lead into the third period before Tomas Plekanec scored with less than a minute gone in the frame.
Carey Price made 28 saves in taking the loss.
“You’re disappointed any time you lose. We did some good things, but at the same time [Carey] Price had to make too many good saves, too many quality chances on the other side. We were getting a lot of shots, but there weren’t many secondary shots around the net. Going forward, tightening it up a little bit and getting on the net and we’ll have better success,” the Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher said after the so-what loss.
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