MONTREAL — The Buffalo Sabres had probably heard the song in their dressing room 2 1/2 hours earlier, rumbling from the Bell Centre’s sound system to introduce the Montreal Canadiens to the crowd shortly before the opening faceoff.

So now, nearing 10:30 on Tuesday night, they were hearing Good Feeling again, but the bass-heavy tune’s bouncy lyrics now blared on their own stereo.

The Sabres’ 3-1 victory over the Canadiens was a battle of two bottom-feeding Eastern Conference clubs. Both almost assuredly will be cleaning out their lockers come early April, on the outside of the playoffs looking in.

But you’d not have known the Sabres entered Tuesday’s game with just a 0.6-per-cent chance of making the post-season. Those odds soared to 0.8 per cent with their victory, Buffalo firing 39 shots on Canadiens goalie Carey Price and finding the mark into an empty net with their 40th.

We had most recently seen the Canadiens six nights earlier on Bell Centre ice, the matchup on paper suggesting the home team would be slapped as brusquely as a pick-up artist at happy hour.

But then they dropped the puck last Wednesday and the Habs put seven pucks behind Detroit’s Jimmy Howard and relief goalie Ty Conklin.

Whipping the NHL’s best club 7-2 gave the Canadiens a two-game win streak and sent their fans into the all-star break giddy with anticipation. Next up were the lowly Sabres.

That didn’t turn out very well, now did it?

“We got ourselves into a hole here,” Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller said, having turned aside 27 Canadiens shots for his and his club’s second straight win, the netminder having snapped a personal 10-game road skid last week in New Jersey.

Miller surrendered only a first-period breakaway goal to Montreal’s Max Pacioretty, who poked home his own rebound after creating a turnover in the neutral zone to rush in alone.

“We don’t need to talk about why we’re here,” Miller said of the Sabres plight. “It’s important we came off the break strong. That was a really nice hockey game — we were responsible and came out on top.

“We have back-to-back wins for the first time in a while (since Nov. 8-11), so we start to build from the positives.”

Montreal Gazette

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