Nov 1, 2025; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Montreal Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky (20) celebrates with teammate forward Nick Suzuki (14) after scoring a goal against the Ottawa Senators during the first period at the Bell Centre. | Credit: Eric Bolte-Imagn Images
First period
I miss Ray Ferraro already.
The crowd is very quiet to begin this game. I guess they don’t know if they’ll be cheering a goal or a fight first.
There also isn’t a whole going on to get excited about yet. The play is sloppy on both sides.
Matheson has a breakout pass go awry, but Samuel Montembeault is there to make the save.
It’s a big save, because moments later Cole Caufield gets a breakaway, and he squeaks the puck through the pads of Linus Ullmark, who then drifts back and bumps the puck over the line.
COLE CAUFIELD CANNOT BE STOPPED
1-0 Habs!
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Nick Suzuki’s point streak stays alive, now at 11 games.
Zachary Bolduc gets a huge cheer from the crowd as he flips Jake Sanderson into Montreal’s bench with a big hit. Kurtis MacDermid goes after Bolduc for the hit, and will get two minutes for roughing.
Perfectly clean hit by Bolduc, guy-who-isn’t-even-ECHL-quality Macdermid fills his diaper, and this should be a power play for the Habs. pic.twitter.com/Op2tvCRRsG
— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) November 1, 2025
Can Montreal rub salt in the wound with a power-play goal?
They do more than that with a highlight-reel passing play from Ivan Demidov to Cole Caufield, who slings the puck to Suzuki at the right side of the net, who in turn spins and sends it across the crease to Juraj Slafkovský to bang in.
Hahaha the Habs just Globetrotter’d the Sens
2-0 on a Slafkovsky goal
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Ottawa is relegated to launching long-distance wristers at Montembeault, allowing him to glove down some easy pucks to get a little confidence built up.
Tyler Kleven lays a big hit on Alexandre Carrier before he touches the puck after Nick Cousins was trying to go after the defencemen earlier in the period. Joe Veleno comes in to defend his teammate, and ends up with the extra two for beginning the fight.
This is the best Ottawa has looked tonight, which just drives the point home that you can’t give them power plays.
Montreal did well to keep the puck heading down toward Ottawa’s zone.
Ridly Greig completely whiffs on the puck and hits Lane Hutson in the chin instead. A chance to increase the lead to three.
Demidov fires the puck off the shaft of Ullmark’s stick.
Caufield hits Ullmark in the face with a surprise shot and knocks his mask off.
Great that the aim is getting shots now with both Demidov and Suzuki making high-quality setups.
The period ends with about a minute left on the power play, and a 2-0 lead for Montreal.
Second period
The power play ends early on a turnover at the blue line that leads to a Shane Pinto breakaway. Slafkovský will go off for holding.
Another casual glove save from Montembeault on the one look Ottawa gets on their abbreviated power play.
Hutson creates a whole offensive-zone shift by himself with an entry and some fancy footwork to allow his teammates to join him. The shift ends with a tip from Gallagher that ends up getting stopped by Ullmark.
Alex Newhook fires a shot that looked like it went off the crossbar, but they are reviewing it. Newhook didn’t seem to think it was in, and it was not.
Mike Matheson throws his shoulder into Tim Stützle and crumples him to the ice to get some space to play the puck. I guess if they didn’t call Kleven for hitting Carrier, they can’t call that either.
Bolduc gets sent in on a half-ice breakaway, but his shot misses the net.
And about 10 seconds later, Drake Batherson makes it 2-1. Jayden Struble gets beat to the net for one shot, and Veleno wasn’t nearly hard enough on his crease-clearing attempt and touched it right to Batherson’s stick.
Matheson hits the post. Montreal could have a 5-0 lead, but instead it’s 2-1.
At least there’s no multi-goal lead to defend.
Carrier goes of for tripping up Cousins, giving Ottawa a chance to tie the game.
Batherson ends that 10 seconds in by tripping Josh Anderson. Time for some four-on-four.
Demidov rips a shot at the ear of Ullmark forcing a tough glove stop.
Now Hutson gets sent in on a breakaway, and he gets hooked before he can get a shot off. He’ll get a penalty shot.
The defenceman is stopped. The Canadiens have had four chances that could easily have been goals in this period.
Ottawa scores with 10 seconds to play, on a rebound that went off the skate of Matheson and in. But the officials determine that Claude Giroux had skated into the crease on his own to interfere with Montembeault, preventing him from playing his position.
They will now look at a slow-motion breakdown to see if he actual had time to reset or not. And they determine that he did.
It feels like 10% of the goals the Canadiens have allowed these season have been weird deflections into their own net.
The game could be 6-0 Montreal, but it’s 2-2 as the teams go to the second intermission.
Third period
Struble and Cousins kick off the third period with a fight. Struble should really be the only going to the box because Cousins wasn’t able to land a punch. Cousins goes to the dressing room for repairs, Struble to the box for a five-minute breather.
Carrier goes for a hit on Ridly Greig, but Greig tries to spin away at the last second and Carrier goes awkwardly into the boards headfirst.
I just had to turn away to watch a benches-clearing brawl in the Jays game, but nothing’s happened in Montreal.
The strong defensive positioning Montreal showed all game is beginning to abandon them, and it’s a little concerning that that happens so often in the third period. There was nothing wrong with how they played the opening 40 minutes.
As I finish typing that, the Senators make it 3-2. Stutzle landed a big hit, probably a bit late, on Brendan Gallagher at the Senators’ blue line, then deked Montembeault too far out of position and tucked the puck in.
Ottawa has four high-danger chances in this game at five-on-five to Montreal’s eight.
A little bit of creativity is all Montreal needs to even up the game, Demidov collects the puck at the blue line and completes a give-and-go with Hutson to get it back in the slot, the rips it past Ullmark.
Ivan Demidov snaps some ankles, then ties the game up seconds later
Insanity at the Bell Centre
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Montreal is pressing for a late winner.
The crowd is singing Ole because they know that even if they don’t get the winner here, Caufield will be coming on for the first OT shift.
Overtime
Suzuki and Hutson spend their first shift looking for Caufield, but don’t like the setups.
It’s not Caufield who gets the winner on this night, but Newhook. He had a puck go off the crossbar and out earlier in the game, but goes bar-down for the extra point in OT.
The Montreal Canadiens refuse to lose in overtime, Alex Newhook wins it for the Habs
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) November 1, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Montreal is 9-3 on the season, with 18 points to sit one back of the Colorado Avalanche for top spot in the NHL.
EOTP 3 Stars
3) Can never fault a guy for that
2) Or were they … sinister?
1) It could have been a very different game for him with the Cousins shenanigans
