{"id":578977,"date":"2026-04-03T05:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578977\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T05:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:56:09","slug":"hidden-game-canadiens-extend-winning-streak-to-seven-against-rangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578977\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Game: Canadiens extend winning streak to seven against Rangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was 54 years ago, on April 2, 1972, that Vic Hadfield became the first New York Rangers player to score 50 goals in a season. He scored twice in a 6-5 loss to the Canadiens at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

Thursday night, again at MSG, the Rangers and Canadiens \u2014\u00a0two Original Six teams \u2014\u00a0met. And we nearly saw Cole Caufield<\/a> score his 50th goal this season.<\/p>\n

Caufield scored twice, including the winner with slightly more than five minutes remaining in regulation time, as the Canadiens edged the Rangers 3-2. The game shouldn\u2019t have been that close but, 100 years from now, nobody will remember.<\/p>\n

\"HockeyCanadiens\u2019 Alex Newhook (15) celebrates his second-period goal against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: The Canadiens stretched their season-long winning streak to seven games. That includes the first four games of this five-game road trip. The Canadiens won eight consecutive games early in the 2016-17 season. Caufield now has 49 goals this season with seven games remaining. It\u2019s no longer a question of if \u2014\u00a0but when \u2014\u00a0he\u2019ll hit 50.<\/p>\n

All Caufield, all the time: He now has 12 goals in his last 11 games. That includes scoring in four straight games. Caufield also has 12 game-winning goals this season. Twenty-six of his 49 goals have come on the road. He becomes the first Montreal player to score that frequently on the road since Guy Lafleur<\/a> in 1979-80.<\/p>\n

Coincidence, or not?: Late in the game, the Rangers having pulled goaltender Igor Shesterkin, Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis kept Caufield on the bench. None of Caufield\u2019s 49 have come into an empty net. Somehow, it wouldn\u2019t do justice if the 50th was produced without a netminder, in our humble opinion.<\/p>\n

Memo to Caufield: Don\u2019t score Saturday at New Jersey. The Canadiens then return to play four straight at home. Caufield deserves to do this at the Bell Centre. The fans deserve it, too.<\/p>\n

It must be the traffic: Anyone who has been to Manhattan knows drivers basically can\u2019t get anywhere. That might explain the Rangers\u2019 12-19-7 record on home ice. They\u2019ve been shut out seven times at MSG \u2014\u00a0and went more than 49 minutes before ending Jacob Fowler\u2019s bid for his second shutout this season. New York, already eliminated from the playoffs, will miss post-season action for a second straight season.<\/p>\n

News you need (Part I): This was the Canadiens\u2019 first win at MSG since January 2023.<\/p>\n

No-fault insurance doesn\u2019t exist in the state of New York: It might have been accidental, but Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a> took a double-minor seven minutes into the game for high-sticking Vladislav Gavrikov. The Rangers directed three shots at Fowler over the next four minutes, but failed to score.<\/p>\n

Strange, but true: The Rangers didn\u2019t get another shot until 58 seconds remained in the period. They peppered Fowler, making his first start since last Saturday at Nashville<\/a>, with three shots in the final minute.<\/p>\n

\"HockeyCanadiens\u2019 Josh Anderson checks for damage after being hit with the puck against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Hockey players are tough: Josh Anderson took a Kaiden Guhle shot \u2014\u00a0deflected by Jake Evans \u2014\u00a0to the face in the period. Anderson moved his jaw around a little, saw no teeth were lost, and didn\u2019t miss a shift. Why are we not surprised?<\/p>\n

Faceoff of the night (Part I): Alex Newhook beat J.T. Miller to the draw in the second period. Eight seconds later, Newhook opened the scoring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pass of the night: Slafkovsky, behind his back, to Caufield on Montreal\u2019s second goal.<\/p>\n

Sieve of the night: Shesterkin has won 24 of New York\u2019s 31 games this season. He stopped 48 of 50 shots in his last two starts. But he was beaten on the 12th and 13th shots he faced over a span of 1:44. His save percentage against Montreal was .880.<\/p>\n

Great moments in officiating: Zachary Bolduc grabbed Will Borgen\u2019s stick in the second period. Bolduc then high-sticked himself in the face with Borgen\u2019s stick. Borgen was penalized. We can\u2019t make this stuff up.<\/p>\n

What was all the fuss about: With two unanswered second-period goals, the Canadiens now have outscored opponents 89-84 in the period. It also marked the eighth consecutive game in which Montreal hasn\u2019t allowed a second-period score.<\/p>\n

News you need (Part II): Will Cuylle\u2019s tying goal, slightly more than 14 minutes into the third period, ended a 13-game drought.<\/p>\n

Momentum \u2026 schmomentum: Only 47 seconds later, Caufield scored the winning goal.<\/p>\n

The things that sometimes go unnoticed: That goal began with Nick Suzuki winning a faceoff in his own zone. Before the puck was dropped, Mike Matheson and Noah Dobson changed positions. That meant, following the faceoff, Matheson had the puck on his forehand. Matheson passed to Caufield.<\/p>\n

Unsung heroes: In the game\u2019s final minute, Guhle<\/a> blocked a Mika Zibanejad shot. And Evans won two critical faceoffs \u2014 beating Miller and then Vincent Trocheck with 2.8 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

Defence wins championships: Canadiens\u2019 goals against during this winning run \u2014\u00a03, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2.<\/p>\n

Next time, decline the penalties: The Rangers went 0-for-3 on the power play. The Canadiens were 0-for-2 with the man-advantage.<\/p>\n

\"HockeyCanadiens goalie Jacob Fowler makes a save against Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re (13) of the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Bruce Bennett \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Quick stats: Caufield had seven shots. Guhle blocked four shots and had four hits. Jayden Struble had four hits. Dobson had three blocks. Lane Hutson played 25:54. Matheson played 23:22. Dobson played 22:43. Arber Xhekaj played only 9:45, while Brendan Gallagher was limited to 8:50. Fowler\u2019s save percentage was .917. The Canadiens won 57.7 per cent of their faceoffs, but were outhit 27-22.<\/p>\n

They said it: \u201cWe want to keep this going,\u201d Caufield said in New York. \u201cIt\u2019s a good feeling in the room right now, but we\u2019re still hungry. We\u2019re focused on our team game and winning games. Individual stuff comes with that. Doing the right thing, you get more chances and opportunities. Obviously, it helps when you\u2019re winning games. You\u2019d be crazy obviously not to know what\u2019s going on around the league.<\/p>\n

\u201cFowler was great,\u201d he added. \u201cHe made a bunch of great saves.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a goal-scorer like (Caufield), you know you can always pass to him and there\u2019s a big chance it\u2019s going in,\u201d Slafkovsky said. \u201cI hope he can get (50) as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really love our whole game tonight,\u201d Suzuki said in New York. \u201cThere were points where we were doing good things. And points where we kept shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit. Finding a way to win the game after giving those two up is huge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that we (can play) better than tonight,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cI felt we put ourselves in a spot to win the game. Fourth game on the road. The last five, six games have been playoff-like games. I didn\u2019t feel our intentions were so off. We weren\u2019t as sharp in some spots but, in the end, I felt we put ourselves in a good spot to win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

hzurkowsky@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was 54 years ago, on April 2, 1972, that Vic Hadfield became the first New York Rangers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-578977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578977","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=578977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}