We fully understand that making a schedule for a professional sports league is no easy task.
Outgoing CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie managed to incite teams on an annual basis despite overseeing a circuit consisting of only nine clubs. We can well imagine fitting the pieces into the 32-team NHL is comparable to solving a Rubik’s cube.
But the Canadiens organization should be incensed with the NHL. After completing a six-game road trip Saturday night against Colorado and spending a good portion of Sunday returning from Denver, did it make any sense having the team play Monday night at the Bell Centre against the well-rested Vancouver Canucks, who last played on Friday night?
Rhetorical question. And now the Canadiens don’t compete again until Friday night. That’s our rant for the night.
And despite all this, Montreal overcame a 3-1 deficit and captured a 5-4 overtime victory. Go figure.
News you need (Part I): The Canucks have allowed the first goal 22 times this season including Monday, after Cole Caufield opened the scoring. This was the visitors’ 39th game.
A night of milestones: Referee Eric Furlatt was working his 1,500th game. Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes, who returned after missing four games with a hand injury, suited up in his 400th regular-season match.
The drought is over: Canucks centre J.T. Miller, the subject of trade rumours and media speculation due to apparent issues between himself and teammate Elias Pettersson, hadn’t scored in 12 games, his last goal coming into an empty net. But he tied the game, 1-1, midway through the first period. Then, for good measure, he provided Vancouver with a 2-1 lead early in the second.
That’s how you start a game: Caufield’s team-leading 22nd goal this season came after only 67 seconds on the Canadiens’ second shot. It marked the fourth consecutive contest in which he has scored.
Hit of the game, and maybe the season: Canadiens’ defenceman Kaiden Guhle came to play on this night. In the game’s opening minute he absolutely demolished Jonathan Lekkerimaki with a clean, open-ice check. Lekkerimaki, only 20, had just been recalled from the Canucks’ Abbotsford AHL affiliate. He was selected 15th overall in 2022 and was in the neighbourhood, the team having played Friday and Saturday in Laval.
Like watching paint dry: Through more than 15 minutes, the shots on goal favoured Montreal, 4-2. There might have been more hits than shots — Guhle and defenceman Jayden Struble hitting everything in sight through the opening period.
News you need (Part II): Vancouver has an impressive 11-4-3 record on the road, including an 8-0-3 mark when leading after the second period. The Canucks had a 3-2 advantage over the Canadiens following 40 minutes.
Dumb penalty (Part I): In the sixth minute of the second period, the Canadiens’ Emil Heineman interfered with Conor Garland, wiping out the final 49 seconds of Montreal’s power play.
We only play a doctor on TV: How is it that Canadiens forward Patrik Laine, a highly-trained pro athlete, has now missed three games, supposedly with flu-like symptoms? Whatever happened to the 24-hour stomach flu?
News you need (Part III): Hughes now has a team-leading 43 points. The remaining Canucks defencemen have only 22 points.
News you need (Part IV): We’re told the Canadiens organization distributed 8,001 Arber Xhekaj bobbleheads on this night.
Strange, but true: The Canucks now have an 8-2-9 record in one-goal games. To put it another way, they’ve lost 11 of 19 one-goal affairs.
It’s the little things that go unnoticed: Jake Evans, arguably playing the best hockey of his career, didn’t draw an assist on the Canadiens’ second goal, scored by Guhle midway through the second period. But the puck likely wouldn’t have gone in had Evans not screened goaltender Kevin Lankinen.
On the other hand: Evans took an unnecessary tripping penalty on Jake DeBrusk in the offensive zone late in the second period.
It’s a game of inches: In the opening seconds of the third period, and clinging to a 3-2 lead, Tyler Myers hit the post.
Dumb penalty (Part II): Caufield slashed Myers’s stick out of his hands in the third period. Vancouver tied the score, 4-4, on the ensuing power play.
News you need (Part V): DeBrusk, who scored that fourth goal, has now scored 12 of his team-leading 17 goals on the road.
Dumbest penalty: In the final minute of regulation time, Nils Hoglander interfered with Josh Anderson, eventually leading to Nick Suzuki’s winning goal in the opening minute of overtime.
Quick stats: Struble had five hits. Mike Matheson blocked three shots while logging 23 minutes. Lane Hutson, the game’s first star, had three shots while playing a team-leading 25:19. Suzuki had four shots. The Canadiens won 58.7 per cent of the game’s faceoffs.
They said it: “It feels like we haven’t been home in two months,” Guhle said. “I was just trying to set the tone for the game for the boys. I’ve tried to get physicality more into my game. I saw the opportunity to make a hit. I saw a few tonight and I took them.
“We’ve got no quit right now,” Guhle added. “There’s so much confidence throughout the whole group. Everyone’s feeling good. It’s an absolute blast to win. We’re getting that feeling of what it’s like now that we’ve won a few here in the past 10 or 11 games. Everyone’s just hungry for that feeling.”
“We’ve got a lot of self-belief,” said Kirby Dach, who scored his sixth goal this season — including his fourth in six games. “We’re playing the right way and doing the right things over and over and getting results out of it. As a young group when you see that product start to work, you stick with it and do the right things. And you get rewarded.”