![\"Montreal](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/nhl-alex-tuch-89-of-the-buffalo-sabres-looks-to-deflect-the-puck-against-jakub-dobes-75-of-the-montr.jpeg\" "\\"<p>Alex")
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Alex Tuch #89 of the Buffalo Sabres looks to deflect the puck against Jakub Dobes #75 of the Montreal Canadiens in Game Five of the Second Round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs at KeyBank Center on May 14, 2026 in Buffalo, New York. (Photo by Bill Wippert\/NHLI via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Thursday night\u2019s Game 5 between the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres was another spicy chapter in the rivalry between the two NHL playoff clubs. The incident that had everyone talking was Canadiens goaltender Jakub Dobe\u0161 throwing a punch at Buffalo Sabres forward Alex Tuch during a heated crease confrontation in the third period.Of course, that became one of the biggest talking points of the night in the NHL news roundup. No penalties were called after the exchange, but the altercation was the latest sign of the increasing physicality between both teams as the postseason atmosphere continued to heat up.<\/p>\n
Jakub Dobe\u0161 and Alex Tuch exchange punches during NHL Game 5<\/p>\n
In a crowded sequence in front of the crease, Alex Tuch made contact with Jakub Dobe\u0161 near the net, and Dobe\u0161 responded with violence. Tuch appeared to jab at the Canadiens’ goalie after a whistle in a battle for position, and Dobe\u0161 immediately retaliated with a punch to the chest of the Buffalo Sabres forward.The confrontation briefly flared up as players from both sides gathered around the crease. The officials jumped in before things could boil over, and amazingly, there were no penalties on the play.The exchange followed a difficult opening period for Dobe\u0161, who came under heavy offensive pressure from Buffalo early in the game. But the Montreal Canadiens’ goalie got comfortable as the night wore on and helped his team hold the line on the scoreboard.Montreal had a comfortable lead of multiple goals heading into the third period, and the young netminder seemed to grow in confidence. Dobe\u0161 didn’t shy away from the rough stuff happening around his crease. He showed emotion and grit that fired up his teammates right away.One of the Canadiens defencemen who appeared to feed off the play while sitting on the bench was Arber Xhekaj. The moment also generated plenty of buzz in NHL updates and social media chatter, with many fans commending Dobe\u0161 for his ability to hold his own in the heat of a playoff environment.The most recent NHL game results again highlighted the physicality of the Canadiens-Sabres rivalry that has developed throughout this postseason series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Tuch #89 of the Buffalo Sabres looks to deflect the puck against Jakub Dobes #75 of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5103],"tags":[6452,265,47282,5,64329,909,264,21,64327,5147,4,64265,45428,237,64330,64328],"class_list":["post-575517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal-canadiens","tag-alex-tuch","tag-canadiens","tag-goalie-fight","tag-hockey","tag-ice-hockey-rivalry","tag-jakub-dobes","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-montreal-canadiens-vs-buffalo-sabres","tag-montrealcanadiens","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-game-5","tag-nhl-news-roundup","tag-nhl-playoffs-2023","tag-physicality-in-nhl-playoffs","tag-playoff-atmosphere"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116578556806741183","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}