MONTREAL — Lindy Ruff decided to keep the Buffalo Sabres off the ice between Games 5 and 6. The coach knew the pressure his players were under as they faced elimination, and he wanted to do whatever he could to ease it. When the team woke up in Montreal on Saturday, Ruff and the players had a quick film review and meeting.“Watched the video, got the crap out of our system,” Sabres center Josh Norris said. “Watched it, and then you move on and go out there and do what you talked about. There’s nothing really left to be said.”The Sabres did just that, beating the Canadiens 8-3 inside Montreal’s rowdy Bell Centre to force a Game 7 on Monday back in Buffalo.Canadiens fans were ready to party Saturday night. The holiday weekend brought even more people into the city. Thousands of fans were outside the Bell Centre watching the game, and the 20,962 fans filled the arena with ear-splitting noise before puck drop. Montreal police warned fans outside the building not to bring any pyrotechnics or fireworks, concerned about the kind of scene a Game 6 win would create in the city’s streets.But the Sabres, who came into this game 4-1 on the road in the playoffs, scored seven consecutive goals to thwart that party and keep their season alive with another road win to bring the series back home for Game 7.“Well, we’re in the process of seeing if we can play here on Monday,” Ruff quipped.Rasmus Dahlin scored 32 seconds into the game on a nifty backhand after weaving through Montreal’s zone. But that lead didn’t last long. The Canadiens scored on their first shot, a one-timer from Arber Xhekaj off an offensive-zone faceoff.That goal ended up being just the start of the problems for Sabres goaltender Alex Lyon. Montreal scored on the power play 8:12 into the first period when Ivan Demidov ripped a one-timer by Lyon’s glove. Moments later, Jake Evans scored a short-handed goal off the rush that went right through Lyon. That’s when Ruff decided to pull Lyon, who stopped just one of the four shots he faced.The Sabres didn’t fold, though. Canadiens defenseman Mike Matheson took a double minor for high-sticking, and Jason Zucker scored on the power play to get the Sabres back within one going into the first intermission. Then they broke the game open in the second period. Zach Benson scored a minute into the second period. Then, Jack Quinn got a power-play goal, and Konsta Helenius scored to make it four successive goals for Buffalo. Quinn added another power-play goal in the third to make it 6-3. Tage Thompson’s empty-netter made the score 7-3, and Zach Metsa added Buffalo’s eighth goal with 2:11 left.For the Canadiens, it is a repeat of the scenario from the first round, when they had a chance to close out the Tampa Bay Lightning on home ice in Game 6 and failed to do so, forcing them to go back to Tampa and win Game 7.The difference is that the Canadiens played probably their best game of the first round in that Game 6, and Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was the only thing preventing them from closing it out. That was obviously not the case in this Game 6.“It’s probably the worst game we’ve played, so we’re only going up,” Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. “It’s going to be important for guys to look themselves in the mirror and say that we’ve got an opportunity to win one game and move on to the third round. So we’ll take that any time.”Buffalo will now play in a Game 7 for the first time this postseason. The lopsided nature of the Sabres’ three losses in this series would have made it easy to count them out. But as they’ve done most of the season, they found a way to handle the adversity. Now, they’re going to play in a Game 7 with a trip to the Eastern Conference final on the line.“I think you’re always trying to reach different goals you have as a team,” Norris said pregame. “One was obviously getting into the playoffs. Then, once we realized how good of a team we were and could be, I think you just kind of run with it and you have different standards and expectations every night.