Controversial call: Bolduc gets 4 minutes after Sabres shove him into Lyon
Zach Bolduc got hit with a four-minute roughing call Sunday night in Game 3, and the Canadiens crowd let referee Garrett Rank hear about it.
The video tells a different story than the call.
Watch the clip. Bolduc never touches Alex Lyon until two Buffalo defenders shove him into the crease and on top of the goaltender. He doesn't push back. He falls.
Rank gave him four minutes anyway. Roughing. In a 1-1 playoff game with 1:16 left in the first period.
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The series sits tied 1-1 coming into Montreal. Buffalo took Game 1 by a 4-2 score at home. The Habs flipped it in Game 2, hammering the Sabres 5-1 on the road.
Game 3 was already shaping up tight. A long Sabres power play in a tied playoff game on home ice changes everything.
Martin St-Louis stares down a four-minute kill in Game 3
This is the kind of call that warps a series. The penalty itself isn't unrecoverable.
What sticks is the Canadiens bench now playing four minutes wondering if every fifty-fifty whistle goes against them.
Alex Lyon, all 33 years of him, has been steady for Buffalo. He brought a .934 save percentage into the playoffs across seven games.
Now he gets a two-minute window with the ice tilted his way. Lindy Ruff will take that gift every night of the week.
And the call gets stranger the longer you stare at it. Bolduc was a passenger on that play, not a participant.
Calling roughing on a guy who got shoved into your goalie is like ticketing the pedestrian who got hit by the car.
Buffalo finished the regular season fourth overall at 50-23-9 with a plus-47 goal differential. They don't need help.
They sure don't need a four-minute man advantage in a tied playoff road game.
Rank has a history in Montreal this season, according to fans tracking his games. Whether that's confirmation bias or pattern is up for debate. Bolduc's box time isn't.
The bigger question for Martin St-Louis: how do you kill four minutes against a top-five team without losing the lead, and the building, in one shift?
Game 4 goes Tuesday in Montreal. The series may already feel different by then.
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MAY 10, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Cole Caufield | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Doan | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Joseph Veleno | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zach Benson | - | - | - | |
| Bowen Byram | - | - | - | |
| Sam Carrick | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Phillip Danault | - | - | - | |
| Jakub Dobes | - | - | - | |
| Noah Dobson | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||