Vegas Golden Knights head coach John Tortorella, top, looks on during the first period against the Vancouver Canucks on March 30 in Las Vegas. (AP file photo)

While John Tortorella has only been coaching the Vegas Golden Knights for a little over six weeks, they are his sixth different NHL team and he is coming up on his 22nd anniversary of hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Through all that, he still wonders something about playoff hockey.

“I’m not sure what’s better: experience or youth, when you have no clue what’s going on?” Tortorella said. “They don’t understand the pressures of it because they don’t know. Or the experience.”

Tortorella’s team showed the value of experience, taking a 3-2 series lead over the mostly new-to-this Anaheim Ducks by winning in overtime on Tuesday night. On the flip side, the less-seasoned Buffalo Sabres beat the Canadiens in Montreal to even up their best-of-seven series at 2-2.

Next up are two more chances to test Tortorella’s question with tonight’s games:

Montreal at Buffalo

When: Game 5, 7 p.m. EDT, TNT, TruTV

Series: Tied 2-2

Just when it looked like the Sabres were in trouble, they scored the opening goal less than seven minutes into Game 4 and endured a back-and-forth night full of replay reviews and penalties. Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff wasn’t thrilled with some opposing players “going down easy” and wished for more embellishment calls, but he’s proud of how his young group handled it.

“We battled through all that,” Ruff said Wednesday. “We got to make sure we’re in there but at the same time not taking anything stupid and putting our team at a disadvantage. It’s a fine line right now, but I think there’s a way to juggle around it.”

The Canadiens got a taste of playoff hockey a year ago, losing in five games to Washington in the first round. A few players are left (and Phillip Danault returned) from 2021, when they went on an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final before falling short against Tampa Bay.

Vegas at Anaheim

When: Game 6, 9:30 p.m. EDT, TNT, TruTV

Series: Vegas leads 3-2

Tortorella would love for experience to win out because the Golden Knights are “full of it.” And they know it.

“We’re a pretty comfortable group in there, and there’s a lot of players in there who’ve been through it and had a lot of success and won,” Vegas defenseman Rasmus Andersson said. “We’re an older team, and it’s that feeling that no moment is too big.”

Anaheim has plenty of veteran guys to rely on, including Cup winners Alex Killorn and John Carlson and players like Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba who have gone on deep runs. But the Ducks’ core is about youth, speed and not getting intimidated by the situation.

“I’m pretty excited to see what we all got,” 23-year-old center Mason McTavish said. “It’s our first time with our backs against the wall. I’m excited for us to kind of show everybody what we got.”

Coach Joel Quenneville, who has three Cup rings from his time as head coach in Chicago, has been around long enough that Tuesday night reminded him of a similar Game 5 — 11 years ago … at Anaheim. That was when he was with the Blackhawks, who erased exactly this deficit on the way to their third championship in six years.

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AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York, AP Sports Writer Mark Anderson in Las Vegas and the Canadian Press contributed.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl