Habs Weekly: An Eventful But Successful Week

The Habs embarked on their second multi-game road trip of the early season this week.  With a pair of wins in those three games plus a victory on home ice, they find themselves sitting atop the Atlantic Division through their first ten games of the season.

The Week That Was

Oct. 20: Canadiens 4, Sabres 2 – There have been several bright spots for the Habs this season but Oliver Kapanen coming in and having some success offensively is definitely one of them.  His hot start continued as he opened up the scoring before Alex Lyon held Montreal at bay for a while.  However, the third period saw the Canadiens get some contributions from key contributors with Juraj Slafkovsky scoring early while Lane Hutson potted the eventual winner with a little over eight minutes left to cap the homestand on a winning note.

Oct. 22: Canadiens 2, Flames 1 (OT) – Dustin Wolf has had a tough start to the year for Calgary but he was at his best in this one, even when the lights weren’t half on (a sight we probably won’t see again anytime soon).  Zach Bolduc was able to beat him on the power play in the first period and that was enough offence to get the game to overtime after Adam Klapka took advantage of a Noah Dobson giveaway to tie the game in the third.  From there, Ivan Demidov made a great pass in the offensive zone early in overtime, giving Mike Matheson an easy tap-in for the extra point.

Oct. 23: Oilers 6, Canadiens 5 – In one of the more eventful games of the season, this game had several momentum swings.  After Edmonton took a two-goal lead in the second, the Habs stormed back with three goals in the final 3:03 of the period, then Alex Newhook added one less than two minutes into the third.  From there, they got into some penalty trouble (the justifiability of which was, well, highly debatable) and they couldn’t kill them off, allowing the Oilers to tie the game.  Then, with just over a minute left, Vasily Podkolzkin potted the winner, removing any hope of yet another overtime game.

Oct. 25: Canadiens 4, Canucks 3 – In the first half of the game, Montreal looked like a team playing their third game in four nights with travel which, well, they were.  But when Nick Suzuki opened the scoring on the power play, the Habs woke up and started to control the play for a little while.  Along the way, they potted three goals in the third with Demidov’s marker standing as the eventual winner before they went into prevent defence mode and nearly blew the lead.  Still, it was the third win of the week for Jakub Dobes and taking two of three to start a trip out West is pretty good.

StatPack

Skaters:

#	Player	GP	G	A	+/-	PIMS	SOG	ATOI
8	Mike Matheson	4	2	0	+5	6	7	26:08
11	Brendan Gallagher	4	0	1	E	2	8	13:34
13	Cole Caufield	4	2	0	+2	0	9	17:45
14	Nick Suzuki	4	1	4	+3	0	11	20:55
15	Alex Newhook	4	2	3	+3	0	4	14:53
17	Josh Anderson	4	1	0	+1	2	6	16:16
20	Juraj Slafkovsky	4	2	1	+2	6	10	18:01
45	Alexandre Carrier	4	0	3	E	2	5	21:21
47	Jayden Struble	4	0	1	+2	0	2	14:54
48	Lane Hutson	4	1	4	E	0	6	22:04
53	Noah Dobson	4	0	2	E	2	5	23:07
62	Owen Beck	1	0	0	-1	0	0	8:01
71	Jake Evans	4	1	1	+1	10	13	17:43
72	Arber Xhekaj	4	0	0	-2	4	2	10:13
76	Zachary Bolduc	4	1	1	-1	2	5	10:59
77	Kirby Dach	2	0	0	-1	0	3	11:04
89	Joshua Roy	1	0	0	E	0	0	7:58
90	Joe Veleno	4	0	0	-2	2	4	10:33
91	Oliver Kapanen	4	1	3	E	2	7	12:49
93	Ivan Demidov	4	1	4	+1	0	3	13:02

Goalies:

#	Player	Record	GAA	SV%	SO
35	Samuel Montembeault	1-1-0	6.05	.793	0
75	Jakub Dobes	3-0-0	1.99	.940	0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Cole Caufield (7)
Assists: Nick Suzuki (11)
Points: Nick Suzuki (13)
+/-: Matheson/Suzuki (+7)
PIMS: Arber Xhekaj (15)
Shots: Cole Caufield (26)

News And Notes

– The Habs got Kirby Dach back after he missed two games with a lower-body injury.  However, Patrik Laine’s lower-body issue turned out to be much more severe than his original day-to-day designation.  He has undergone surgery to repair a core muscle injury that will keep him out for three to four months, putting his return timeline close to the Olympics, an event he has a shot at participating in.

– Jakub Dobes is the first rookie goalie to start 5-0 in back-to-back years while retaining rookie eligibility in both seasons.  Once he plays in one more game this season, he won’t be Calder-eligible in 2026-27 or beyond so he won’t get a shot at adding a third season to this, even if he only plays in 24 or fewer games this season.  While 25 games played is normally the cutoff, there’s a little-known add-on to the rule that says if a player plays in six games in any two preceding seasons, their rookie eligibility is capped at the current year.

– Ivan Demidov is the first Hab since Eric Desjardins back in 1989 to have a three-point game before his 20th birthday.

– Owen Beck was sent back to Laval while Joshua Roy and Marc Del Gaizo were recalled, ensuring the Habs would have some extra bodies around in case injuries arose on the road.

– Through Saturday’s games, the Canadiens sit first in the NHL in goals scored with 36.

Last Game’s Lines:

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Newhook – Kapanen – Demidov
Bolduc – Veleno – Dach
Gallagher – Evans – Anderson

Struble – Hutson
Matheson – Dobson
Xhekaj – Carrier

The Week Ahead

Tuesday at Seattle – The road trip ends with Montreal’s second and final matchup of the season against the Kraken.  They continue to be banged up and might not have their top scorer from last year, Jared McCann, available for this one as he recently landed on IR with a lower-body injury while Kaapo Kakko and Ryker Evans have yet to suit up either.  Veterans Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz are pacing the way offensively with eight points apiece while Joey Daccord has quietly been one of the better goalies in the league early on. 

Saturday vs Ottawa – After what will be one of their longer breaks of the season, the Habs will see the Senators, a team that has run hot and cold out of the gate.  Not having Brady Tkachuk certainly doesn’t help their cause but they’re still among the top-scoring teams league-wide; Shane Pinto leads the NHL in goals with eight.  But keeping pucks out has been an issue as Linus Ullmark’s early numbers aren’t promising while backup Leevi Merilainen doesn’t appear to have the trust of the coaching staff; his only win this season came a few days ago against Laval.

Final Thought

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first.  Yes, the Habs have a gripe about the officiating in the Edmonton game.  But let’s not fixate on it too much either.

First, it’s a long season and these things have a tendency to even out.  If you go all the way back to a whopping two weeks ago, you might recall Montreal nearly setting a franchise record for power plays when they had ten against Chicago, allowing them to win a game they probably didn’t have any business winning.  Now, not even two weeks later, Montreal gets the bad end of the whistle and loses a game they probably should have won.  In the end, they’re still pretty much where they should be standings-wise in games where officiating had a bit too much of an impact.  Odds being odds, the Canadiens will be on both ends of this equation multiple more times before mid-April comes around.

Second, and more importantly, the bigger takeaway is that Montreal’s penalty kill is a problem.  They were bad two years ago and benefitted from Samuel Montembeault putting up some very strong numbers shorthanded, dragging the unit’s success rate higher than it probably should have been.  Now, the clock has struck midnight on that and the penalty kill is back to being a pumpkin.  All the Canadiens had to do was kill one of those penalties off when they had the two-goal lead.  They couldn’t get it done.  Yes, Edmonton’s high-end man advantage deserves some credit but a lack of execution from the killers needs to be highlighted. 

You can be upset about the officiating all you want from that game.  But for me, I’m more upset that the penalty kill is coming up short too often early on and this time, it cost them a game they deserved a better fate in.