The Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens are engaged in a hard-fought second-round playoff series and, with each team desperately seeking any edge it can find, their exaggerated reactions to potential penalties has suddenly taken center stage.
Both sides have taken to embellishment at times — Montreal was the more egregious offender in Game 4 on Tuesday night, a 3-2 Buffalo win that leveled the series at two games apiece — and some of the diving has started to reach an embarrassing level.
In turn, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman of Sportnet expects the league will be in contact with the Sabres and Habs ahead of Game 5 on Thursday night.
"I know people ripped the referees in this one. This is a night where the diving made it impossible for them," Friedman said Wednesday on the 32 Thoughts podcast. "You know, there's been a lot of times Kyle [Bukauskas] that you and I have talked about embellishment in these playoffs. It was bad in this game. I have no doubt they're going to warn the two teams about it going into Game 5. I will not be surprised at all if we see at least one embellishment penalty."
There were 11 penalties called in Game 4, and several of them came with a dive attached. It started with the first infraction of the contest, a trip by the Habs' Alexandre Carrier on the Sabres' Jason Zucker, who oversold the severity of the penalty. It continued all night.
Montreal defenseman Kaiden Guhle was the embellishment king on Tuesday, though. He skated directly into Rasmus Dahlin on a Buffalo power play, successfully drawing a laughable call for interference, and then embellished a crosscheck from Tage Thompson late in the first period.
Friedman is right. The diving puts the on-ice officials in a tough spot because, at least in some cases, an actual infraction is occurring but the ensuing theatrics create an unnecessary spectacle.
Calling an embellishment penalty early in Game 5 could bring an end to it for the rest of the series.
Buffalo Sabres' power play is coming to life at a perfect time in the 2026 NHL Playoffs
The Sabres' play with the man advantage was borderline useless for extended stretches during the regular season, and those problems continued throughout the club's first-round postseason series against the Boston Bruins.
At its lowest point, Buffalo's power play went 39 consecutive attempts without scoring.
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff, who's taken on a bigger role with the unit after allowing assistant coach Seth Appert to manage it throughout the regular season, juggled the players on both the first and second power plays and it's yielded some promising results.
Buffalo has gone 5 for 16 (31.3%) with the man advantage against Montreal, including a pair of PP goals in Game 4. Yes, one of them was the result of a lucky bounce on a Thompson shoot in, but the team did look more dangerous in those man-up situations.
"We've talked about our power play being good in key moments. That's what we did: We went out there, we executed," Sabres winger Zach Benson told reporters.
The Blue and Gold were never going to make a serious push toward a Stanley Cup title if their power play remained at the level it was in the Boston series (1 for 24).
Buffalo is a strong 5-on-5 team, but its unfortunate propensity to take avoidable penalties has created an environment across the first two rounds where special-teams play is paramount. It's penalty kill has often come to the rescue, as it did by going 6 for 7 against a talented Montreal PP on Tuesday.
Getting the power play in a better place was essential to keep pace with the Canadiens and, should the Sabres advance, the red-hot Carolina Hurricanes in the next round.
Yes, Buffalo has put together some of these hot streaks in the past only to return to their prior struggles, but Ruff and his staff will hope the switch has flipped for good in this instance.
If it has, the Sabres will be a lot more dangerous for the remainder of their stay in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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