Thompson and Samuelsson suffered injuries in the back-and-forth loss to the Canadiens

The Sabers played shorthand for more than half the game, losing a back-and-forth match to end a three-game winning streak. The game featured six lead changes, including a pair of one-goal leads for the Sabers in each of the second and third periods.

Buffalo led 3-2 with less than a minute to play in the second period before a pair of goals from Nick Suzuki gave Montreal the lead. Suzuki’s first goal, scored with 46.9 seconds on the clock, was the result of an oddball strike. The next goal came 22 seconds later, when Juraj Slafkovsky won the battle for a loose puck low and Suzuki found space to shoot in front of Luukkonen.

“Those last two to end the second period are obviously brutal,” Sabers captain Alex Tuch said. “If you have a lead with a minute to go, you can’t let that happen. Yeah, it’s just bad discipline.”

Ruff encouraged the Sabers to stick with it during the second intermission and assured his players they would have a chance to get back into the game. That chance came quickly in the form of a power-play goal by Rasmus Dahlin, which tied the score at 4-4 just 1:58 into the third period. JJ Peterka got behind Montreal’s defense and scored five holes to put the Sabers back in front less than two minutes later.

Once again, the Canadiens answered with two goals of their own scored in quick succession. Emil Heineman scored on a shot through traffic to tie the game at 5-5 with 7:02 remaining. Just 25 seconds later, Dahlin was called for elbowing as he braced for an expected hit from Canadiens forward Jake Evans along the wall. It was the sixth minor penalty of the evening for the Sabres.

“Way too many penalties,” Dahlin said. “Especially my punishment. I take full ownership. That can’t happen.”

Cole Caufield scored the winning goal with 17 seconds left on the assured power play. Slafkovsky received a carom off the end boards to the right of the net and made a quick pass through the blue paint to set up the goal, earning his third assist of the night.

Christian Dvorak added an empty net goal in the final minute to prevent the Sabres’ comeback attempt.

“I think we’ll really learn from this,” Dahlin said. “We are humiliated today. I think we were really excited about our previous games, but I don’t know. But we know that if you don’t show up 100 percent, it’s hard to win in this competition. So we are going to work hard to move forward.”