On Saturday night, the Montreal Canadiens’ woes on the weekend continued, falling to the Toronto Maple Leafs for the second time in three nights by an identical 2-1 score.
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Besides losing consecutive games for the first time in 2024-25, the Canadiens suffered through one of the worst games any fan can imagine, losing David Reinbacher and Patrik Laine before the contest was five minutes old.
Icing an almost intact Opening Night lineup, Montreal generated more opportunities. Still, their power play continued to derail their offensive chances, and one of the NHL’s lowest-scoring teams only managed to get one goal past a goalie bound for the AHL.
Here’s a few talking points from the Canadiens first loss on a Saturday night.
Injuries Could Turn 2024-25 Canadiens Into 2023-24 Canadiens
Last year, the Canadiens battled through significant injuries, including the knee injury to Kirby Duch, who finished his best season in the NHL with 14 goals and 38 points in 2022-23. He went down in the season’s second game and is returning to action a year later.
After acquiring former 40-goal scorer Laine from the Columbus Blue Jackets in August, it appears after a gruesome knee-on-knee collision in the first period, the Finnish forward will not be available until 2025, if he returns at all this season.
Meanwhile, Reinbacher departed the game after only 13 seconds, forcing Montreal to play shorthanded all game, missing both two defensemen (after Arber Xhekaj was tossed for retaliating in wake of Laine’s injury) and a forward.
It’s only pre-season, but with no immediate medical updates, losing these two skaters for any length of time forces head coach Martin St-Louis to adjust his lineup. Instead of executing his game plan and tweaking the lines, the group now has to consider shuffling the roster, which was almost set heading into the final week of games before the opener.
The Canadiens needed offense, which was the main reason for acquiring Laine. Losing him before the regular season leaves the team back to square one, hoping the kids can score enough to bump the team up the standings.
The Canadiens Should Skip Future Power Play Opportunities
The Canadiens continue to struggle on the man advantage. In 2023-24, they ranked 27th, converting on only 17.5% of their chances. Despite going 2-0 to start the pre-season with a goal differential of 8-0, they remain goalless on the power play, going 0-for-11.
Against the Maple Leafs in their home-and-home series, the Toronto lineups shut down the Montreal attack, limiting them to two goals while making them miss all nine power play opportunities.
Thankfully, the Canadiens didn’t give up any shorthanded goals over the two contests, especially since they tied the Pittsburgh Penguins for the most against last season. But the cause for concern has to be the power play, which St-Louis is now running.
St-Louis scored 96 man-advantage goals in his career and assisted on another 204. The Hall of Famer should know a thing or two about finding success on the power play, but through the first four pre-season games, the special teams seem to be the team’s biggest weakness, which will cost them severely throughout the regular season.
Canadiens Show Potential to Gut Out Wins With Final Push
Although Montreal trailed 2-0 after Nick Robertson scored his second of the night at 3:26 of the third period, the Canadiens didn’t just sit back and settle for a shutout defeat.
First, Jared Davidson scored to make it 2-1, but in one of the quickest reviews in NHL history, it was deemed no goal, and play continued. But that disallowed lamplighter didn’t slow them down. With Cayden Primeau out of the net, Kirby Dach lit the lamp at 18:18 to give fans something to cheer about other than Xhekaj’s fight in the first period.
Dach’s goal allowed Lane Hutson to pick up his second assist of the pre-season, with captain Nick Suzuki getting the other helper. By the end of the period, the Canadiens got 12 pucks on the net, making Dennis Hildeby work to preserve his shutout, which he lost with less than two minutes to go.
During the final 40 minutes, Montreal outshot Toronto by a 21-12 margin to finish the night with an edge in the category 27-22, the complete opposite of Thursday night, when the visitors only collected 17 shots.
Truthfully, it is going to be a long grind until April, and there are several more matchups against the Maple Leafs. There will be plenty of ups and downs, but the resiliency the young guys showed down 2-0 in a pre-season game means that, at some point, this franchise will turn the corner and become a contender again.
Montreal’s pre-season schedule wraps up with a home-and-home against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday and Saturday. The Opening Night rematch against the Maple Leafs is only ten days away.
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