NHL's sudden 12:30 a.m. Game 4 switch sparks outrage among Montreal fans
The NHL waited until the middle of the night to confirm the time of Game 4 between the Canadiens and Lindy Ruff's Sabres at the Bell Centre.
The announcement landed at 12:30 a.m. this morning. Puck drop is locked in for 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, May 12 in Montreal.
That's an hour later than what was floating around earlier in the week. Search engines had been pointing to a 6 p.m. start for days.
Why the league sat on this until after midnight is anyone's guess. The most likely answer is that the NHL needed to wait on results from other second-round series before finalizing the slate.
It's not the first time fans have woken up to a schedule change buried in an overnight post. And it probably won't be the last.
For Martin St-Louis and his group, the late confirmation actually works in their favor. A 7 p.m. start on a Tuesday in Montreal? That building will be loud from the warmup on.
Bell Centre returns for the first time since the Tampa Bay closeout
The Canadiens haven't played at home since Game 6 against the Lightning. They closed out that first-round series on the road last weekend.
Buffalo punched the first counter in this series. The Sabres took Game 1 on home ice 4-2 on Wednesday, with Game 2 set for tonight at KeyBank Center.
Then it shifts. Games 3 and 4 are both at the Bell Centre. That's the stretch where the home team usually makes its statement, and the schedule now hands Montreal back-to-back home dates with two days off between them.
Buffalo's road record this regular season was 24-13-4. Solid. But playing in front of a packed Montreal crowd in May is a different animal entirely than a Tuesday night in Columbus.
This is also a young Sabres core that hasn't played a real playoff series in well over a decade. The noise hits differently when you've never heard it before.
Montreal went 24-15-2 at home during the regular season. Not dominant. The Bell Centre crowd has been the difference more often than the actual lineup.
So the question becomes whether the Canadiens can take advantage of the energy waiting for them, or whether Lindy Ruff's group can steal one and put real pressure on a building that hasn't lost faith yet.
Either way, the league finally got the time right. Whether anyone was awake to read it is another matter.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Josh Doan | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Ryan McLeod | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Zach Benson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Bowen Byram | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Kirby Dach | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Greenway | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jansen Harkins | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Beckett Sennecke | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mark Stone | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Nick Suzuki | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Chris Kreider | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan Poehling | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Troy Terry | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Shea Theodore | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||