{"id":237220,"date":"2025-10-24T15:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237220\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T15:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:29:12","slug":"canadiens-rightfully-frustrated-by-officiating-in-last-minute-loss-to-oilers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/237220\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens rightfully frustrated by officiating in last-minute loss to Oilers"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 Martin St. Louis debuted a new power-play unit for the Montreal Canadiens<\/a>, swapping out Zachary Bolduc for Ivan Demidov for this big game against the Oilers in Edmonton Thursday.<\/p>\n

Out Demidov went with Cole Caufield<\/a>, Juraj Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki and Lane Hutson in the eighth minute of the first period, and they looked like they were just getting warmed up with the chances they mustered. They whipped the puck side-to-side, up and down, generating five shot attempts \u2014 and the type of momentum they probably felt they\u2019d have a chance to eventually capitalize on if the Canadiens continued playing the way they were playing.<\/p>\n

They were playing great. They were in complete control of this game. And even after they lost it on a couple of bad bounces to fall down 3-1, they regained it immediately with three goals in less than two minutes of play to take a 4-3 lead to second intermission.<\/p>\n

Shots were 21-14 Montreal at that point. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who were paired with Matt Savoie, were dominated at five-on-five by Jake Evans, Josh Anderson<\/a>, Brendan Gallagher<\/a>, and a defence pairing of Mike Matheson<\/a> and Alex Carrier, with the Canadiens controlling 66 per cent of the shot attempts in that matchup.<\/p>\n

So, how did they lose 6-5 after going up 5-3 just 2:10 into the third period?<\/p>\n

\u201cRefs kind of took over the game there,\u201d said Cole Caufield, \u201cand kudos to them for winning it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He scored a goal to tie the game 3-3 right before scoring another goal to give the Canadiens a lead going to the third and he was rightfully furious with how the game turned in such a lopsided way before it ended.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens were called for three consecutive penalties, and Gallagher identified the first one as a boiling point for his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be honest with you, (it) started with Slaf\u2019s penalty,\u201d he said. \u201cTalked to (the officials) after that one, they admitted it wasn\u2019t a penalty, made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadiens forgave it and killed the penalty.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t able to do the same when Matheson went off for a soft tripping call in the 11th\u00a0minute of the third period.<\/p>\n

Draisaitl scored, and then Anderson was called for unsportsmanlike conduct \u2014 either for shooting the puck down the ice or yapping at the official for the call on Matheson.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t clear to us, so we asked Gallagher what explanation was provided to him when he went to speak with the official about the call.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnsportsmanlike. He thought he showed him up. He didn\u2019t. The fact that you don\u2019t know what it is goes to show,\u201d he responded. \u201cBeing an official, you have to understand the temperatures of the game, and that\u2019s part of it. You have to control it, especially when it\u2019s a close game. We were outplaying them, outshooting them, however they were getting more power plays than us. We feel like we deserved some, we didn\u2019t get them, so fine, we\u2019re battling, we\u2019re playing\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201c(The Oilers are) really good players, they don\u2019t need the help.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said the Canadiens could handle their emotions better, and surely Evans and Anderson, who was given a 10-minute misconduct for being unsportsmanlike with 1:10 remaining, would agree.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also fair to suggest the Canadiens missed on a point \u2014 and possibly two \u2014 allowing Vasily Podkolzin to score at even strength with 1:09 remaining. Their coverage slipped, and goaltender Samuel Montembeault shrunk in his net on the play.<\/p>\n

He was slow to react to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins\u2019 shot to tie the game 5-5 while Anderson was fuming in the box, and it was anything but a confidence-inspiring third period for him after fighting through tough breaks over the first two periods and coming up with some timely saves.<\/p>\n

As a result, Montembeault\u2019s wearing a 3.82 goals-against average and an .842 save percentage like a 100-pound weighted vest for a chest protector.<\/p>\n

It might have felt a bit lighter had Montreal\u2019s new power-play unit gotten in a few more reps Thursday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s perfectly valid for the Canadiens to be frustrated it didn\u2019t, and for them to be demanding a higher standard of officiating.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t up to par from Garrett Rank and Chris Schlenker on this night, and the Canadiens didn\u2019t hold back on calling it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Oilers won tonight, but they didn\u2019t beat us,\u201d said St. Louis. \u201cAs coaches, we watch video and try to get better. I hope the league goes through the same process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014 Martin St. Louis debuted a new power-play unit for the Montreal Canadiens, swapping out Zachary Bolduc…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-237220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}