MONTREAL — At one point in the second period of the Canadiens’ 4-3 loss to the New York Rangers on Saturday, defenceman Noah Dobson dived down from the blue line in the offensive zone, and the pass never came.
Nick Suzuki didn’t see him.
Fast-forward to the third period Monday night, and Suzuki saw Dobson not once, but twice on the same shift, and on the second one Dobson set up Juraj Slafkovský with an empty net in front of him to give the Canadiens a 2-1 lead on the Buffalo Sabres in a game they went on to win 4-2, never relinquishing that lead.
On lève nos chapeaux de cowboy à cette mise en scène
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— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 21, 2025
When they got back to the bench, Suzuki had a message for Dobson.
“I found you this time,” Suzuki told him.
This is the process the Canadiens are going through with their shiniest new toy from the offseason. Dobson and Mike Matheson have been spending a lot of time playing behind Suzuki, Slafkovský and Cole Caufield, and for Dobson, it has been a case of learning a little bit more with each passing game.
That shift and that goal was a perfect example of it.
“Just little stuff like that, getting used to one another,” Dobson said. “(Suzuki’s) obviously got high-end skill and he sees the ice very well, so for us, it’s finding open areas and finding that right time to jump in and make a big play.”
But there is a domino effect from this ongoing chemistry experiment.
By the end of last season, the guy who was the designated nuclear option behind the Suzuki line was Lane Hutson. Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery constantly mentioned that foursome as being something he needed to be aware of in their first-round playoff series against the Canadiens, because every time Martin St. Louis sent Hutson out to play behind Suzuki, it was an offensive opportunity and a defensive pressure point for the Capitals.
It was his nuclear option.
If the Capitals could survive those shifts, Carbery figured, the Capitals could win the other shifts.
Now, with the arrival of Dobson and how well he has meshed with Matheson, they are the primary option behind Suzuki. And that allows St. Louis to spot Hutson differently.
And in this game, we saw that there is another nuclear option available to St. Louis.
Les jeunes s’amusent
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— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 21, 2025
The defenceman who has played the most behind Ivan Demidov at five-on-five this season is Hutson. On Monday night, they only spent a little more than two minutes together on the ice at five-on-five, but they produced a moment like that one, and a few others as well.
As the Matheson-Dobson pairing continues to grow chemistry with the Suzuki line, there is an opportunity for St. Louis to continue growing this offensive weapon in the lab.
“They obviously understand the rules of the game,” St. Louis said of that give-and-go-and-give-and-go play that ultimately amounted to nothing. “There’s just rules. They didn’t invent those rules. Hockey’s not an individual sport. There’s individual moments, but to me, you watch any team sport, you’ll see that in soccer, you’ll see that in basketball, you’ll see that in lacrosse.
“It’s just that. It’s beautiful.”
When Demidov was drafted at Sphere in Las Vegas, Hutson was there because it was his brother’s draft year. And he was thrilled the Canadiens were able to draft Demidov.
They are only seven games into this season, but it’s clear that Hutson’s continued process of learning how to play with Demidov, much like Dobson is learning how to play with Suzuki, is an area of continued growth for the Canadiens.
The luxury Dobson’s arrival affords St. Louis is he can use Hutson with Demidov with increasing regularity because the offensive support Dobson and Matheson provides to Suzuki is more than sufficient, and the Hutson-Demidov combination will only grow as the season progresses.
“I can’t even imagine, just because he’s so eager to learn about what he’s doing wrong or how to just generate more,” Hutson said. “His work ethic towards his craft is really special.”
What Hutson said about Demidov could just as easily be said about himself. They are very similar in that way. St. Louis recently joked that he might need to hide Hutson’s skates to prevent him from skating on days off, that managing his energy not only in games, but on off days, will be something he needs to learn.
But Hutson has an intense desire to be better. Demidov has that intense desire as well, as he spent most of his summer hitting the ice twice a day on most days. General manager Kent Hughes told NHL.com over the summer that he was trying to get Demidov off the ice.
These two guys are wired the same way. They are skilled in the same way. They skate in a similar way, using their edges to create space and beat opponents.
It is only natural for St. Louis to try to pair them as often as possible.
And when the two of them are on the road, Hutson and Demidov have the conditions to develop that chemistry in their own personal lab.
“Pretty often,” Hutson said when asked how often he and Demidov talk shop together. “He’s my roommate on the road, so sometimes when we have a play to talk about, we’ll talk about it. Other than that, we kind of talk about mechanical stuff too on the ice.”
Mechanical stuff?
“Like, the mechanics of maybe a crossover, why he jabs a certain way,” Hutson explained. “Stuff like that.”
The Canadiens are heading out on the road Tuesday after practice. Hutson and Demidov will be in a hotel room together for the following eight nights. That secondary nuclear option for the Canadiens risks becoming that much more nuclear over the four-game road trip.
What’s exciting about the Canadiens this season is the additional talent they have. What’s exciting is that Suzuki line does not appear to have hit its ceiling, particularly with Caufield and Slafkovský having a lot of room to grow alongside a centre who appears to be entering the upper tier of NHL centres.
But what might be even more exciting is the burgeoning relationship between Hutson and Demidov, and how they have a coach who is invested in building that relationship and weaponizing it because he has an elite offensive defenceman other than Hutson to play behind the Suzuki line.
And that give-and-go-and-give-and-go play Hutson and Demidov pulled off Tuesday night was just a taste of what they could potentially do as they continue spending nights together in hotel rooms and talking about plays and mechanical stuff.
“I think you become a better goal scorer in the league the more you play, the more experience you have. I think that’s what they’re going through,” St. Louis said. “Because they create chances. They’re two players who can be pass-first kind of players. So they’ll learn that balance. But it’s hard not to pass the puck when the holes are there. And they created those things. The only thing missing was the finish, but I understand their intentions.
“And I coach intentions more than results.”
Down the road, as these two young talents who share so much in common continue to share hotel rooms, who knows how high they could rise together. But it seems rather evident that as time passes, their intentions will lead to results more often than not.