Sabres fans are already regretting what they did before Game 3 that jinxed Buffalo
Tage Thompson and Lindy Ruff didn't need more heat, but Buffalo Sabres fans brought plenty of it outside Bell Centre before Game 3.
The clip that made the rounds before puck drop showed a group of Sabres fans celebrating early, and that's where the story turned.
It wasn't just the timing. It was the prop.
Those fans were filmed chugging drinks from a replica Stanley Cup before Buffalo had even handled its first real road test of the series. For a fan base that knows hockey superstition better than most, that landed hard.
A lot of Sabres fans didn't laugh it off.
They saw a bad omen right away, and by the final horn, the mood around it had completely changed.
Buffalo got run over in Montreal's building and dropped Game 3 by a 6-2 score.
What looked harmless before warmup suddenly felt like gasoline on a rough night.
The video made it worse because it wasn't subtle.
Drinks spilled out of the fake Cup and onto the pavement, while both fans were clearly decked out in Sabres gear.
The Sabres walked into the exact noise they didn't need against the Canadiens
This is why the clip stuck. It wasn't about fan behavior alone.
It lined up with the one thing Buffalo had to avoid heading into a hostile playoff building: giving Montreal any extra edge at all.
Ruff's club already had enough pressure with the series tightening and the Canadiens pushing back on home ice.
Once the Sabres got buried in Game 3, the outside noise became part of the conversation.
That's what makes this more than a goofy parking-lot moment.
In the playoffs, every bounce gets dissected, every bench reaction gets noticed, and every fan stunt becomes part of the story when your team lays an egg.
Nobody in Buffalo's room is going to blame a fake Cup for blown coverage or a flat start.
But fans know how this sport works. You don't tempt the hockey gods and expect silence after a 4-goal loss.
Now the Sabres have to reset fast, because what was supposed to be a quick laugh before puck drop is suddenly attached to one of their worst nights of the series.
That's why this clip hit such a nerve in the first place.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 10, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Cutter Gauthier | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Mitch Marner | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Alex Newhook | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Alexander Killorn | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Beckett Sennecke | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Kirby Dach | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Ian Moore | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||