Josh Doan just got caught cheating on camera
Josh Doan is the latest name pulled into the Sabres-Canadiens diving debate, and the clip making the rounds Thursday night isn't doing him any favors.
The Buffalo Sabres forward took a high stick from Juraj Slafkovsky and went down with both hands to his face. Habs analyst Mike Habs Laughs called it textbook embellishment.
"The Sabre sees the stick, skates into it and reels back with the face clutch." That's the read every Habs fan was sharing within minutes of the broadcast.
The 24-year-old Doan is one of Buffalo's best young scoring stories of the year. He posted 25 goals, 27 assists and 52 points across 82 regular season games at a 925 thousand cap hit.
His playoff line keeps building. 6 points across 8 postseason games, plus-4, with a game-winning goal. Lindy Ruff has trusted him with real shifts in this series.
The high stick was real. Slafkovsky's stick was up. The question is whether Doan's reaction crossed into the territory the league fines players for.
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The diving file on this series keeps getting heavier
Bowen Byram caught Alexandre Texier in the face during Game 4 and watched the Habs winger take the hit without selling anything theatrical. That was the Sabres' version of an honest call.
Doan's reaction Thursday night looked nothing like that.
The face clutch, the head snap, the slow-motion fall. All of it is the kind of sequence Player Safety reviews on Friday mornings.
That's the part that makes this series different. Both teams now have legitimate diving questions hanging over their forwards.
Buffalo can't afford to lose Doan to a fine or to a sit-down conversation with the league.
The Sabres are already short with Sam Carrick out and Jason Zucker dealing with a block injury.
Doan's regular season role grew under Ruff because of his shot. 9 power play goals on the year showed why he ended up on the man advantage units in the first place.
Slafkovsky's stick gave Buffalo a power play. That's the only thing the box score will show. The replay debate doesn't change the result.
Martin St-Louis won't lose sleep over what happened on the ice. His Habs got a man advantage out of it whether anyone in the building agreed with the read or not.
The diving question follows the league into Game 6. Or wherever this series ends up by the weekend.
What both fan bases agreed on is that the officiating storylines are now bigger than the goals being scored.
That's never a good sign for the league. It's a great sign for the noise.
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LIVE
MAY 14, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nick Suzuki | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Phillip Danault | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Josh Anderson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Josh Doan | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Konsta Helenius | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||