Luukkonen, Benson lift Sabres past Canadiens 3-2 in Game 4 to tie series

MONTREAL — Lindy Ruff promised Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen his opportunity would arrive, and the Buffalo Sabres netminder delivered when it did on Tuesday night.

In his first appearance since April 21, Luukkonen stopped 28 shots to help the Sabres hold off the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 in an intense Game 4 filled with long reviews, weird bounces and numerous penalties.

“He’s the guy that sits there and is pushing the other guy to play well, and has worked extremely hard knowing that his chance was going to come,” said Ruff, the Sabres head coach. “I even talked to him five, six days ago about, ‘Your time will come.’”

Zach Benson scored the go-ahead goal — on his 21st birthday — 4:41 into the third period as the Sabres evened the second-round playoff matchup at two games apiece.

The pesky winger shovelled a backhand past Jakub Dobes’s glove from the edge of the blue paint on the power play, a goal that stood as the winner after Luukkonen kept the Sabres in the game.

“He’s a dog. We had all the confidence in the world in him,” Benson said. “(Luukkonen) made so many big saves that we really needed in key moments, so all the credit goes to him.

“He was the biggest reason of why we walk out of this building with a win.”

Mattias Samuelsson and Tage Thompson — on one of the flukiest goals imaginable — also scored for Buffalo, as the Sabres responded after dropping Games 2 and 3 by a combined score of 11-3.

Luukkonen made his first start since a Game 2 loss in the opening round against Boston, replacing Alex Lyon after the back-to-back lopsided defeats, and was a key factor in limiting the gifted Canadiens’ power play to one goal on seven opportunities.

With the Sabres trailing 2-1 early in the second period, the 27-year-old Finn denied two Grade A one-timers from Cole Caufield during a Canadiens man advantage. First he stopped the 51-goal scorer from the slot before stretching out the pad to keep it a one-goal game.

The Canadiens had also failed to capitalize on a four-minute power play late in the second into the third period, with Luukkonen thwarting a one-timer from Ivan Demidov.

“Those are the saves that everybody’s up on the bench. I mean, they’re game changers,” Ruff said. “It is the time of year where you need big saves. You’d say our penalty killing was good, but a big part of our penalty killing was getting a big save at a big time.”

Those timely stops allowed Thompson to tie the game on a four-minute power play seven minutes into the middle frame when his dump-in from centre ice redirected off the glass in the left corner and bounced in off Dobes’ right pad.

Had Thompson ever scored on such a fortuitous bounce?

“Not like that, but I’ll take it,” he said. “It’s a nice feeling when you see that.”

Alex Newhook and Caufield replied for Montreal, while Dobes made 19 saves.

The series shifts back to Buffalo for Game 5 on Thursday night before returning to the Bell Centre for Game 6 on Saturday. The winner will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference final.

“Broke them down a bunch, had our looks, goalie made some big saves and that kept him in it,” Caufield said. “Thought we played a pretty good game. There’s some things that we can always get better at, but to see a fluke goal like that go in, it’s obviously not the bounce you want.”

It was one of multiple momentum swings in the back-and-forth affair, which started with a jacked up Bell Centre atmosphere as Guy Carbonneau — the captain the last time the Canadiens won the Cup in 1993 — carried the ceremonial torch into the lower bowl.

Samuelsson finished a pretty passing play to open the scoring 6:32 into the first period.

The Sabres appeared to make it 2-0 less than two minutes later following a lengthy review — only for Jack Quinn’s goal to be taken away from a successful goalie interference challenge in a strange sequence of events.

Quinn’s shot crossed the goal line inside Dobes’s glove, but Konsta Helenius had made contact with Montreal’s netminder before the attempt.

“Which I totally disagree with,” Ruff said. “Just for the fact that Dobes always is swinging his stick. He initiated the contact with Helenius … I really thought that that was going our way.”

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, meanwhile, liked his odds.

“If we win the challenge, it gives us a boost,” he said. “And that’s what happened.”

The red-hot Newhook tied the game at 10:08 in the first with his fifth goal in three games, then Caufield slipped a cheeky shot between Luukkonen’s legs on the power play with 13 seconds left in the period after Thompson took a needless cross-checking penalty.

From there, Thompson got a bounce and Luukkonen shut the door, justifying Ruff’s change in goal.

“At this point of the year, it doesn’t matter to me (if I start). As long as we win, that’s the most important thing,” Luukkonen said. “It feels good to come in and be able to help the team to win, too.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 12, 2026.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press