{"id":224383,"date":"2025-10-19T04:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T04:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224383\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T04:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T04:57:07","slug":"samuel-montembeault-shoulders-blame-for-montreal-canadiens-loss-to-new-york-rangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224383\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Montembeault shoulders blame for Montreal Canadiens\u2019 loss to New York Rangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 After allowing three goals on six shots in the first 5:51 of the third period of the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> 4-3 loss to the New York Rangers<\/a> on Saturday, goaltender Samuel Montembeault shouldered the blame.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens held a 2-1 lead into the third period, but the three straight goals turned that into a 4-2 deficit at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will take a lot of the blame,\u201d said Montembeault. \u201cI need to be better. It\u2019s two games in a row I have a good two periods and then in the third it doesn\u2019t go as well. The guys work hard and it\u2019s up to me to make the saves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montembeault allowed four goals on 22 shots Saturday, and it was the second straight game that he had that statline. Five of the eight goals have come in the third period.<\/p>\n

The Rangers scored the go-ahead goal on Matthew Robertson<\/a>\u2019s first NHL goal, a shot from the point without much traffic in front.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never saw a shot curve like that,\u201d Montembeault said. \u201cIt was going one way and then went the other. But it\u2019s still a save that I need to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montembeault had a career best 31 wins, 2.82 goals against average and .902 save percentage for the Canadiens last season. Through his first four starts this year, he is 2-2 with a 3.26 goals against average and .857 save percentage.<\/p>\n

Though the Canadiens goaltender was taking the blame, his captain and coach don\u2019t feel that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think he should be too hard on himself,\u201d said Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki<\/a>. \u201cWe did a lot of things in front of him that didn\u2019t help him out too much. I thought he made some big saves and we have all the trust in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players are competitive. It\u2019s a position that is unforgiving,\u201d said Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s not all on Monty. We needed to do things better in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the things both players and coaches alike felt they need to do better is breaking the puck out of the defensive zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we were too connected coming out of our zone and through the neutral zone, especially in the second period,\u201d said Canadiens defender Mike Matheson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they did a good job of disrupting our breakouts and really making it challenging for us,\u201d Suzuki said.<\/p>\n

MATHESON THE WORKHORSE<\/p>\n

The Canadiens were short-handed for 3:32 throughout Saturday\u2019s game, and Matheson was on the ice for every one of those seconds. The Canadiens defender has been forced into the go-to blue liner on the penalty kill, especially with the news that the team will be without Kaiden Guhle<\/a> for four-to-six weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I play the full two minutes and I feel pretty comfortable doing that,\u201d Matheson said. \u201cEspecially when it is in zone, it\u2019s not like you\u2019re running around, it\u2019s a lot more controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n

He led all Canadiens players with 24:07 in total ice time.<\/p>\n

PENALTY THE TURNING POINT<\/p>\n

With the Canadiens up 2-0 after just 3:42 in the first period, things were going their way until Josh Anderson<\/a>\u2019s holding penalty midway through the frame.<\/p>\n

Mika Zibanejad<\/a> scored on the ensuing power play, and cut the deficit to 2-1.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens struggled to regain control of the game from that point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a 60-minute game. When a team scores the next goal to make it 2-1, it changes the game. It was a different game after we took the penalty,\u201d St. Louis said.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2025.<\/p>\n

Jared Book, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 After allowing three goals on six shots in the first 5:51 of the third period of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-224383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}