MONTREAL — It took a bit longer than usual for Martin St. Louis to make the walk from his office to the Bell Centre news conference room after watching his Montreal Canadiens lose 7-0 to the Dallas Stars on Thursday night in his 300th game behind the bench.
When asked if he needed time to cool off, he responded that he did not.
“Newy is being evaluated,” he said, “and we have decisions to make.”
“Newy” is Alex Newhook, the Canadiens’ fifth-leading scorer this season with 12 points in 17 games. While he was technically being evaluated after the game, a medical degree is not required to recognize that he had been seriously injured, and an ankle is not supposed to turn like his did during the second period, as right wing Brendan Gallagher confirmed after the game.
Alex Newhook leaves the game after a lower-body collision with the boards. pic.twitter.com/6A3PVNvsRg
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 14, 2025
“Yeah, we’re going to be without Newy for a little bit here,” Gallagher said. “A player that worked really hard in the offseason, knew how important this season was to him and our team. He was having an unbelievable year. You just feel for him at this point.”
The reasons behind Montreal losing by a combined score of 12-1 to the Los Angeles Kings and the Dallas Stars in back-to-back games on home ice are not difficult to understand. For a second straight game, the Canadiens couldn’t make a pass, couldn’t handle the puck, couldn’t get a save and had mental lapses defensively. They have gone 11 straight power plays without scoring over their last four games and one period, largely because they can’t make a pass and can’t handle the puck.
“I feel like we’ve had some looks on the power play, a little bit of (a lack of) execution finishing those plays off,” captain Nick Suzuki said. “So, I would like to run it on my side a little bit more. We’ve kind of got caught in between and been a little bit too perimeter.
“Our power play needs to help us win games, and it’s not doing that right now.”
But NHL players generally don’t go long being unable to make a pass and handle the puck. Goaltenders Sam Montembeault and, now, Jakub Dobeš — who allowed five goals on 13 shots before being pulled at the second intermission — will likely figure out how to make a save, or at least one of them will. The problems the Canadiens are facing seem fixable. They just need to fix them.
“We’ve just got to get our confidence back,” Suzuki said, “and get back to being us.”
But the injury to Newhook risks being the most impactful thing that happened to the Canadiens, more impactful than giving up a touchdown to the Stars, more impactful than their rookie goalie getting pulled in the midst of a standout season and more impactful than being booed at the Bell Centre.
Because the injury could force Montreal to re-assess what “being us” really means.
After using all sorts of line combinations in garbage time of a 7-0 loss, with roughly one minute left in regulation, St. Louis sent out Ivan Demidov, Kirby Dach and Zack Bolduc. Not a lot happened of note on the shift, but the combination was notable.
Demidov has played with Newhook and Oliver Kapanen all season. The three sit fourth, fifth and seventh on the team’s scoring list. Kapanen and Newhook are the Canadiens’ most productive forwards at five-on-five this season, with nine points apiece, with Demidov not far behind at seven points.
That line, in many ways, has allowed St. Louis to deploy his forwards in a certain way, to manage Suzuki’s line’s ice time by relying more on depth than star power. St. Louis often talks about the Canadiens coming in waves, which is another way of saying he will try to beat teams with his depth up front. He admitted that he was still struggling with it.
This is a philosophical decision St. Louis has made, one based on the weak-link game theory, where a team whose worst players are better than the other team’s worst players will eventually win out.
A strong-link team leans heaviest on its best players, and Newhook’s loss might force St. Louis to switch game theories. Because for the first time in a long time, the Canadiens have the option of being a strong-link team, to load up as much talent as possible in their top-six and ride them a bit harder than they have this season.
One way to do that would be to put Demidov with Dach and Bolduc and create two checking lines behind them, going to more of a traditional top-six/bottom-six setup.
The decisions St. Louis and Canadiens management were making after the game, leading St. Louis to arrive later than usual for his news conference, might be more of a philosophical decision than strictly a personnel one.
Before Thursday’s game, St. Louis was asked about his philosophy when deciding to switch up his forward lines or maintain the continuity the Canadiens have largely benefited from this season. For someone as superstitious as St. Louis to talk openly about how healthy his team has been a few hours before playing a game was a bit surprising.
He will likely think twice before saying something like this ever again.
“I feel like you always have ideas,” St. Louis said Thursday morning. “And sometimes you’re forced to (make) changes due to personnel being out of the lineup. Sometimes that will create a scenario where now you can actually try something because there’s something totally new. So you might mix two lines now just because of one guy getting out. But we’ve been somewhat, pretty healthy. Our team has performed pretty well as a whole.
“I don’t get consumed by that, but I’m always prepared with what’s next.”
What’s next is now upon us. Newhook has searched for an NHL role and identity his whole career, and this year, he found it. He’s become an important part of the Canadiens, and he deserves a lot of credit for making that happen.
But his absence allows St. Louis to try something because something new exists. It allows him to lean more on the quality of the talent available to him and less on the depth of the talent, going from a weak-link approach to a strong-link one.
It is something Suzuki would seemingly welcome.
“Their line was scoring a lot of big goals for us, and Newy’s doing a really great job,” Suzuki said. “It’s up to the guys to fill in spots, and we’ll see what happens moving forward, but I’d love for my line to affect the game on the scoreboard.”
Suzuki’s already playing 20 minutes a night, so there are limits to how much more the Canadiens can lean on him. But Bolduc playing just over nine minutes in New Jersey last week was what led St. Louis to admit he could do a better job doling out ice time.
That job could be simplified with a more simplified talent split, a top-six/bottom-six approach that puts the team’s six most offensively talented forwards in one group, and their six best checkers in another. It’s not that simple, of course, but the new setup is one worth at least exploring.
Because the Canadiens are no longer performing pretty well as a whole. And because there is a player out, it creates something totally new.
“Yeah, I have to re-assess,” St. Louis said of Newhook’s likely prolonged absence. “Back to the drawing board a little bit and go from there.”