Canadiens and Sabres fans hit with another Game 7 schedule change
Martin St. Louis and the Montreal Canadiens now face Game 7 after the NHL moved puck drop again for Monday night in Buffalo.
The league confirmed Game 7 against the Buffalo Sabres will start at 7:30 p.m. Eastern at KeyBank Center.
That might not sound massive on its own. In this series, it's become part of the story.
This matchup has already come with multiple schedule tweaks, and fans have been forced to keep checking for updates instead of planning around a steady calendar.
At this stage of a second-round series, that's a rough look for the league.
Most games around this point of the playoffs have landed in cleaner windows, usually around 7 p.m. Eastern.
Game 6 already stood out when it was placed at 8 p.m. Saturday night at the Bell Centre. Now Game 7 gets another different start time.
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The NHL keeps moving the target
That's now the third different schedule setup attached to this series, and it's tough to ignore how messy that feels from the outside.
The likely reason is television.
The NHL still has to line up American and Canadian broadcast windows, with ESPN in the United States and Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports in Canada.
Even with that reality, this many late adjustments in one series is unusual.
It leaves fans waiting for final confirmation far too close to game day, and that adds frustration to an already tense playoff round.
For the Canadiens, the bigger issue is that this game is happening at all.
They had a chance to finish the series Saturday night in front of their home crowd and lock down a trip to the Eastern Conference final.
Instead, they came up flat in the biggest moment and let Buffalo drag the series back across the border for one more game.
That changes the pressure around everything. The crowd, the bench, the matchups and every special-teams mistake carry more weight now.
Montreal still has a path to move on. But after missing its chance at home, the margin is gone.
Now the Canadiens head into Buffalo with elimination on the table and yet another revised puck-drop time hanging over the night.
Game 7 goes Monday at 7:30 p.m. Eastern at KeyBank Center.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 16, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | 4 | 5 | |
| Tage Thompson | 1 | 3 | 4 | |
| Jack Quinn | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| Zach Benson | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jake Evans | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Konsta Helenius | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Zach Metsa | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Arber Xhekaj | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Bowen Byram | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Michael Matheson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Norris | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||