MONTREAL — The only storm raging in Montreal Tuesday morning was outdoors, a blizzard burying a city that, until this snowy insult, had a spring in its step to go with the one on its calendar.

All was calm inside the Bell Centre dressing room of the Buffalo Sabres, the Canadiens’ opponent that night.

Two days earlier, two members of the grossly underachieving Sabres had been ranting with great gusto, though only one at the other.

On Sunday morning, forward Patrick Kaleta sprang a leak in Washington when he was made a healthy scratch by coach Ron Rolston for that day’s game against the Capitals.

It was Kaleta’s first game of eligibility following a five-game suspension he had served for a brutal boarding of New York Rangers superstar Brad Richards.

“I’m pissed off. I want to play,” Kaleta fumed to Buffalo News hockey writer Mike Harrington, before railing at some length about feeling unwanted by his team.

The Sabres, 10-15-4 heading into Tuesday’s game against the Canadiens, then dropped a 5-2 Sunday decision to the Capitals, surrendering three goals in less than six minutes of the second period after having listlessly lost in overtime to Ottawa a day earlier.

Goaltender Ryan Miller, a backup in Montreal to Jhonas Enroth while lumbering through a subpar season of 9-13-4, flipped out post-game Sunday when told of Kaleta’s comments.

“He’s being dramatic,” Miller told Harrington of his testy teammate. “We’re not discussing what Patty says to you (media) guys. That’s just drama and he needs to just grow up if he’s going to say that.

“You know what? He had a stupid play in a game (resulting in suspension). He sat, he was punished. He has to get over it and move on. We handled it. He doesn’t have to go to you guys and say that stuff.”

An observer in Montreal considers this situation and tries to imagine had it been two Canadiens blowing gaskets. Say, rugged Brandon Prust or Ryan White in Kaleta’s role and Carey Price in Miller’s. And you realize this city’s sports media and a maniacal fan base would have spontaneously combusted or simply detonated, leaving scorched earth or a crater.

“That would have been on your TV for quite a while,” Sabres captain Jason Pominville, a native of Repentigny, said with a chuckle.

Then, through another laugh: “We’ve actually been telling Patty to grow up for years. He brings his Legos on the road. No, to be honest with you, it was kind of blown out of proportion.”

(Though Kaleta does indeed have a world-class Lego and action-figures collection.)

The Sabres, without the absurd media caravan that follows the Canadiens, nevertheless moved to damage-control mode Monday, an off-day for the team.

The club’s website featured a 4½-minute interview with Miller, who was unavailable to reporters Monday or pregame Tuesday, in which the goalie said, “You can get me to say just about anything after a loss like that (to Washington).”

Miller added that he had apologized to Kaleta, saying he believed his teammate’s angry comments had been misrepresented to him.

“What I was told (Kaleta) said and what he actually said were two different things. … The meaning was different enough for me to react the way I did,” Miller said. “Either way, I probably shouldn’t have handled it like that.

“But again, (I was) frustrated and I think that everyone in Buffalo knows I’m prone to say stupid things in the course of a season.”

Kaleta was just happy after Tuesday’s morning skate to be back in the Sabres lineup. And he bore no grudge against Miller, for years his roommate on the road who “is like my brother, one of my best friends on the team.

“Some things were misunderstood but you know, we’re family,” Kaleta said. “I have my blood brother at home and sometimes you fight, say things. But (Miller) is my family. We have an awesome bond, I have his back 100 per cent no matter what happens.

“It was blown out of proportion a little bit. In the end we took care of it (with a talk). Today’s a new day and we more forward.”

Pominville didn’t see any clouds hanging over the dressing room, no matter that this team has been rained on plenty during its plummet toward the Eastern Conference cellar.

“They’ve talked, they’re good buddies (and) I don’t think it has any effect on the team at all,” he said of Kaleta and Miller.

Rolston, the interim head coach who replaced Lindy Ruff a month ago, had no problem with Kaleta’s reaction to being scratched.

(The last time the Sabres played in Montreal without Ruff behind the bench was March 8, 1997, Ted Nolan coaching a 3-3 Buffalo tie in the Molson Centre that wasn’t yet a year old.)

“We want players to be not happy when they’re not playing,” said Rolston, who before Tuesday had only watched hockey at the Bell Centre. “If they’re not in that mindset, you probably don’t want them on your team. That was made a lot more outside (the team) than inside. There’s no issue there.”

This white-hot/ice-cold feud is the least of Ralston’s concerns. The club is such a mess that owner Terry Pegula is thinking aloud that no one is untouchable as the April 3 trade deadline approaches.

Pominville was saying all the right things, about his team’s urgency to get on a winning streak, about avoiding thoughts of this season being a snowball rolling downhill “because as soon as you do, you’re done.”

But even in a Montreal blizzard, in their season from hell, with or without roster unrest, it was clear that the Sabres’ playoff chances are now roughly that of a snowball in a very warm place.

dstubbs@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @Dave_Stubbs