We’ve got a winner-take-all showdown tonight in Buffalo, as the most entertaining series of the second round concludes with a Game 7 that’s felt inevitable all along. The eyes of the hockey world will be focused on KeyBank Center tonight, as fans feel the weight of suspense over who’ll win between the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens.But they shouldn’t be. Because it’s pretty obvious.I mean, the hockey gods aren’t even really trying to disguise the ending here. If you’ve been paying attention to this series, you know who’s going to win.We’ll lay that case out today, although you should probably skip this post if you prefer to avoid spoilers. I’ll give you five reasons why the winner is so obvious, and by the end you may not even want to bother watching the game.One small point of order: Because of our commitment to covering both sides of every story, it wouldn’t be fair to only list reasons for one team. So we’ll do both, if only out of an abundance of journalistic ethics. But it goes without saying that I only mean it for one team, and it should be obvious which one that is. (If you’re not sure, check with me after the game is over and I’ll be happy to tell you which side I was really on all along.)Five reasons why the Habs are definitely winning tonight. And five more for the Sabres. The right answer is definitely in here somewhere.Montreal will win because: They can actually trust their goaltenderWe’ll start with the easy one. As always when it comes to a winner-take-all hockey game, we can approach this from a dozen different angles. We can dig into increasingly obscure stats. Or we can babble about vibes and narratives and all the rest of that nonsense.Or we can just accept that the team with the best goaltending will win. Like they always do.And in this series, only one team has any reason to have much confidence in their goaltending. Granted, Jakub Dobes is coming off a rough one in Game 6, a performance that saw him yanked for the first time this spring while driving his series save percentage down to .884. That’s not ideal, I’ll grant you.But it’s still better than what the Sabres are facing. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was supposed to be The Guy in Buffalo for this playoff run, but he almost immediately lost his job to Alex Lyon. Now Lyon has presumably lost it back, with Luukkonen expected to get the nod tonight. Is that the right call? And if he gets off to a slow start, how short should the leash be? Knowing his team doesn’t fully believe in him, can he shake off a bad break or tough goal, or will he crumble in the bright lights?The Habs don’t really have those questions. After seeing Martin St. Louis stick with Dobes through a shaky start in Game 5, we know he’s all-in on his starter.There’s an old hockey cliche that says if you’ve got two starting goalies, you don’t have any. Montreal has one and they know it. The Sabres are running out of time to figure it out.Buffalo will win because: The Canadiens had their chance and they blew itSorry, Habs fans. If you’re looking for a story about why your team is going to win this series, you’re two days late. That story should have been written Saturday, when absolutely everything was pointing to the Canadiens closing out the series. They were at home, on a traditional Saturday night, coming off a convincing road win. Larry Robinson had the torch. The Forum ghosts were ready to go. And just 10 minutes into the game, the Habs had already scored three times to chase the Sabres’ starter.The series was over. Anyone remember what happened next?I’ll give you a hint: The Sabres scored. And then scored again. And again. And again. And again and again and again. Seven straight goals, turning what was supposed to be a Canadiens coronation into one of the most embarrassing blowouts in modern franchise history.Now we’re going to pretend like we’re not sure how this all ends? Really? We’ve already seen the stunning conclusion, and it was the Sabres’ domination on Saturday. Tonight is just the feel-good post-credits scene.Montreal will win because: They’ve been better at even strengthA big story in this series has been the steady stream of penalties. At times, it feels like these two teams can’t go more than a few shifts without somebody eating a high stick. And in theory, that’s good for Buffalo, who’ve had a minor special teams edge in the series.But this is a Game 7. And if we know one thing about an NHL Game 7, it’s that the referees are absolutely desperate not to decide the game. That means them putting the whistles away, unless a call is so obvious that it would be ridiculous not to whistle it. And even some of those will be let go tonight.The Habs know how this works. The Tampa series was a nasty one at times, but when Game 7 came the refs let them play, calling just two minors on each team (plus a puck-over-glass with just a few seconds left in regulation). The Habs’ power play had been a story in that series, but when it all came down to one game, they had to find their offense at five-on-five. They did, their opponent didn’t, so they won.So far this series, the Canadiens have outscored the Sabres 14-11 at five-on-five. That’s a very good sign, given how much of tonight’s game figures to be played that way.Buffalo will win because: They have home iceThere wasn’t a ton to choose from between these two teams during the season, with them finishing just three points apart in the standings. But those three points were enough to make Buffalo the top seed, and that means they get home ice tonight.That doesn’t guarantee anything, of course. But it provides plenty of small advantages, and in a series this close those factors could add up to the difference. The building will be rocking, the Sabres will get last change, and maybe one or two of those close calls will just happen to go the home team’s way.We’re used to saying that home ice doesn’t matter much in the parity era, and sometimes that’s true. But this year, we’ve already got three division winners waiting in the conference finals. The Sabres could it make it 4-for-4, something that’s never happened before in NHL history. And the home-ice advantage they had to scratch and claw for all year long could be the difference.Montreal will win because: The Sabres have home iceWas that last section convincing? Maybe, right up until you remember the road teams are dominating this series. They’ve won four of six, including each of the last three. The Sabres are 5-1 on the road this postseason, and just 2-4 at home. Meanwhile, the Habs are 5-2 on the road and just 2-4 at home. In other words, home ice hasn’t meant a thing to either of these teams this year, and if anything it’s been a disadvantage.And that’s especially true in Buffalo. Yes, the building will be loud tonight… at first. But this is the first Game 7 that the Sabres have played in 15 years, and the first one they’ve hosted in 25. There’s going to be a ton of nervous energy in that rink tonight, and if the Sabres start slow it might get awfully quiet.The Habs have already won a Game 7 on the road this year, and it was one where they didn’t even play all that well. That’s fine; there are no style points when it’s winner-take-all. Sometimes, playing on the road gives a team permission to play a simple, effective game without trying to impress anyone. Both of these teams know how to do that, but the Sabres can try all the psychological tricks Lindy Ruff knows and it won’t change the fact that they’re the home team tonight, with all the pressure that brings.Buffalo will win because: Thompson has finally arrived in this seriesIt’s hard to win a series when your best players aren’t your best players. The Sabres have been fighting an uphill battle on that front. Emphasis on the past tense, because the stars woke up for Game 6.You can start with captain Rasmus Dahlin, who became the first defenseman in NHL history to have five points with his team facing elimination. But the big name here is Tage Thompson, whose line has been largely shut down so far in the series by Philip Danault and friends. Thompson was the Sabres’ leading scorer during the season, but aside from Game 1 against the Bruins, he’d been a non-factor for most of Buffalo’s run.Until Saturday. Thompson’s four-point night was the sort of performance teams need to see from their star players. It was a statement game. And the statement for the Habs was: You should have stolen the series early when you had a chance, because now the big man has finally arrived.Montreal will win because: Caufield hasn’t really arrived… yetThe other American sniper in this series hasn’t had his breakout … yet. But when you watch Cole Caufield, it’s hard not to feel like it’s coming soon.He’s had his chances. They just haven’t been going in, especially at even strength, where Caufield has just a single point through two rounds. He’s still had his moments on the power play, but there won’t be many of those tonight. If the Habs are going to win, they need their first 50-goal man in a generation to look the part tonight.Maybe he doesn’t, and Montreal loses, and Caufield has to hear about it all summer. But again, the eye test suggests otherwise. It says this kid is ready to burst, and it might only take one bounce to open the floodgates.The Sabres have barely been able to hang with Montreal without Caufield contributing much, so imagine how tonight looks if he’s a factor. The message to Buffalo is clear: You should have stolen the series early when you had a chance, because the little man is about to finally arrive.Buffalo will win because: They have better slogansIt’s been an underrated subplot of the series. I’m all for that, because as a writer, I like to pretend words matter. In this series, they absolutely might.Normally that would be good news for Montreal, because Martin St. Louis has always had a talent for turning a phrase. “Play the game in front of you” is pretty good. “Bounce forward” takes a little getting used to, but once you hear him explain it, you can see the vision. The Habs have some strong options here.But that won’t be enough against the Sabres, who’ve been keeping their copywriters busy all year. From “Drink beers” to “Dogs have to be dogs,” the slogan work has been top-notch. Now they’re breaking out “JFG”, which stands for something approximate to “just freaking go.”I think that trumps “bounce forward,” and I think the gap is wide enough that it could be the deciding factor. But kudos to both teams for their work in this department, because this stuff is surprisingly easy to screw up.Montreal will win because: They’ve been here beforeJust a few days ago, in fact. Admittedly, they didn’t play their best game in Tampa with the season on the line. But they did just enough, and that’s all you ever need to do in a Game 7. The Canadiens know that, and every one of them have firsthand experience with winner-take-all hockey, even the kids.That’s not the case in Buffalo, where key names like Dahlin and Thompson will be playing a Game 7 for the first time. In fact, Alex Tuch will be the only Sabres player who’s ever so much as had a point in a Game 7.And if you want to zoom out, things get even more worrying for Buffalo. This franchise has existed for 56 years. Want to guess how many times they’ve won a Game 7? Here’s a hint: It’s the same number of Game 7 wins the Habs have had this month. Yep, just one. The Sabres have played a Game 7 on seven different occasions, but their only win was against the Senators, the only team that’s even worse in this category, and it came all the way back in 1997. Against opponents who aren’t weirdly cursed in Game 7? The Sabres have never beaten anybody, ever.Is that bad? It seems bad. Unless you’re a Habs fan, in which case you know that your team has won a Game 7 on the road more than any other franchise, and you’re feeling pretty good about your odds of it happening again tonight.Buffalo will win because: They’re the team of destinyTake your stats. Take your scouting reports. Take your X’s and O’s, and your matchups, and your analysis. Take it all. And then shove it, because there’s something bigger happening in Buffalo.Destiny is a big word in the NHL, and most years we can leave it alone and focus on the real world. But every now and then, a team comes along that’s meant for something bigger. And when that happens, you don’t need a list of reasons why they might win. You just know they will.The Sabres have become that team. Their fans have already embraced their status as one of the greatest bandwagon stories of all time. But it goes beyond that. This is a team that’s already been the subject of prophecy. They’re out here scoring series-turning goals by bouncing them off the skulls of Forum ghosts that wander too close to the ice.And on top of that, we can see the path being laid in front of them: This playoff run is the Adams Division revenge tour, with the Sabres facing all their former foes from that five-team division that us olds grew up with. They beat the Bruins. They’re going to beat the Canadiens. Then comes the relocation Whalers, followed by the relocated Nordiques. It’s all Adams, all the time.Wait, refresh my memory … what was the name of the GM who built this roster? Huh, interesting. The hockey gods have had all this hidden in plain sight all year long, and they couldn’t have been more obvious about it.I can’t tell you whether this means a Sabres championship is inevitable, although there have been times when it felt that way. Maybe there are more twists and turns to come, or even yet another dose of Buffalo sports heartbreak. But one thing I do know: The hockey gods don’t dump this much destiny into a team’s lap, after 15 years of suffering, only to cut the whole show short after two measly rounds.Sorry, Montreal. You’ve got a fun team that would make for a worthy conference finalist. But there’s something bigger happening here, and your role is to play the villain who gets overcome at the last moment.Obviously.