In Buffalo, the Montreal Canadiens’ Josh Anderson scored with less than four minutes left in the third period for a 3-2 lead over the Sabres on Thursday. 
Sam Montembeault protected the lead for the win, he made 43 saves.
“Coming across the middle there, I was just looking at an empty net, and obviously their goalie made a nice save,” Anderson said. “You kind of just have to stay with it and finish the shift out, and lucky [David Savard] had the puck there and saw me open, and I was fortunate enough to get it off and squeak one in there at the end.”
Jeff Skinner and Dylan Cozens scored for the Sabres.
“We came into the second intermission tied 1-1 on the road,” Montembeault said. “We worked hard after that. Guhle continued to play some really good hockey, got his first career goal. They came back, but after that, we continued to work hard. Big goal from Anderson. Once we scored the last goal, we did a really good job of managing the puck. They couldn’t pull their goalie (until late).”
Kaiden Guhle hit for his first career NHL goal.
“For sure I’m happy with the result,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “It’s rare you play a perfect game. Tonight we had some highs and some lows, but we found a way.”
The Habs took a 1-0 lead in the first period off a strike from Brendan Gallagher.
“I think the second period was our big, big opportunity,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “I think there we complicated some things. We could have been a little bit more intense going to the net, maybe scored a goal. I think we tried to pass the puck into the net. Feeling good about puck movement of possession time and didn’t have the killer instinct that we needed at that point, and it caught up with us.”
Skinner tied the game, 1-1, with31 seconds gone in the middle frame.
“It’s always nice, obviously, if you haven’t got one in a while to get one to maybe relax a little bit,” Skinner said. “But yeah, after that you kind of look forward to the next one, and I thought we had some chances, just couldn’t get that one we needed.”
Eric Comrie made 31 saves in the Buffalo loss.
“We got lots of shots, but we might need more bodies around the net to get those rebounds and get those greasy goals,” Cozens said. “Not every goal is going to be pretty. So I think that was something we can work on, for sure.”
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