The Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins 5-2 on Thursday night at TD Garden, scoring five goals on a team that had been leading the Atlantic Division. Kirby Dach, Josh Anderson, Jake Evans, Cole Caufield and Phillip Danault scored, and Montreal led 5-0 before Casey Mittelstadt scored twice for Boston. Jacob Fowler made 30 saves on 32 shots (.938) and improved to 9-1-2 this season.
It was the 12th straight game with at least one point for the Canadiens. Since their 5-4 loss in Washington on October 14, the last time they lost in regulation, they are 9-0-3. At 12-3-4 they have 28 points, level with Tampa Bay (13-4-2), which also won Thursday and stays in first place in the Atlantic. Boston drops to 13-5-1 with 27 points. Montreal is also the first team to score five goals on the Bruins this season, after Boston had allowed four goals in a game five times in its first 18.
The Depth Lines Set the Tone
The fourth line scored first. Dach, playing with Alex Newhook and Oliver Kapanen, wrapped the puck around Jeremy Swayman at 2:34 of the first period for a 1-0 lead, with assists from Arber Xhekaj and Newhook. Anderson made it 2-0 at 8:36 with a wrist shot, assisted by Evans and Mike Matheson.
Anderson and Evans play together on the second line with Chris Kreider, and they were just as important in the second period. Boston pinned the Canadiens in their own end early in the period, and Xhekaj had just finished a 3:04 shift when Evans scored on a breakaway at 4:24, with Anderson getting the assist. The goal ended Boston’s pressure and gave the Canadiens a three-goal lead.
Caufield and Danault Finish It
Caufield made it 4-0 at 8:14 of the second period, again on a breakaway, and the goal ended Swayman’s night. He stopped 13 of 17 shots before Michael DiPietro replaced him. It was Caufield’s 12th goal of the season, and he has now scored in eight straight games against Boston, with 11 goals and one assist in that stretch.
Danault, on the third line with Alexandre Texier and Zachary Bolduc, scored at 14:15 with a slap shot, and the assists went to Bolduc and Alexandre Carrier. It was an all-Quebec goal, and it made the score 5-0. Boston answered 38 seconds later when Mittelstadt, with assists from Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov, scored on a wrist shot after the Canadiens were caught at their own blue line.
Boston Pushes Back in the Third
Mittelstadt scored his second of the night 53 seconds into the third period, with assists from Lindholm and Charlie Borgen, to make it 5-2. The score brought back memories of the 5-4 overtime loss to Winnipeg on November 3, when Montreal blew a 4-0 lead, but this time the Canadiens tightened up and Boston never got closer. DiPietro stopped 13 of 14 shots in relief.
Matheson Returns, Kreider Goes Down
Matheson returned after missing six games and played 21:11, the second most on the team behind Lane Hutson (21:33). He had an assist, finished +3 and blocked three shots. Kaiden Guhle, his partner, led the Canadiens with five blocks. The defense pairs were Hutson with Noah Dobson, Matheson with Guhle, and Xhekaj with Carrier, and the forward lines were Juraj Slafkovský, Nick Suzuki and Caufield on the first line, Kreider, Evans and Anderson on the second, Texier, Danault and Bolduc on the third, and Newhook, Kapanen and Dach on the fourth.
The one bad moment came in the third period. Kreider was hurt after contact with Michael Eyssimont, who fell into his legs, and he limped down the tunnel to the dressing room favoring his left leg. He had played 9:08 and did not return. The team has not given an update, and we will post it on our Injury Report page when we have one.
Fowler Stays Sharp in Boston
Fowler, back in the city where he played college hockey, stopped 30 of 32 shots (.938). He is 9-1-2 this season, and by our math from the NHL game logs he has a .926 save percentage and a 2.13 goals-against average over 12 games, with two shutouts. Both Boston goals were Mittelstadt’s, and neither came on a power play.
The Blue-Line Problem Behind the 5-2 Score
The score looks comfortable, but Martin St. Louis did not pretend it was a clean night. “It wasn’t our best game tonight,” he said. According to Sportsnet, which cited SportLogiq tracking data, Boston made 56 controlled entries against Montreal. That included ten in a row over the first ten minutes of the third period and eight more before the final buzzer. The Canadiens have worked all season to deny entries far more often than they did last year, and this was the one detail that slipped on Thursday.
Jake Evans, Nick Suzuki, Mike Matheson, Phillip Danault and St. Louis all gave the same explanation: Boston’s defencemen were involved in every rush. St. Louis described what happens when a team is chasing the score. It sends four or five players up the ice, and if the first forward turns the wrong way, two defencemen can get by and create a numerical advantage. Suzuki said the fix starts higher up the ice, because when the forwards track well, the defence has the confidence to hold the line and deny the entry. Matheson felt the team got into shooting lanes and defended with desperation, but said it had to do too much of it, and that better puck management, forecheck details and neutral-zone play will cut down the clean entries.
From a coaching point of view, this is a pattern to watch. It was the 13th time in 19 games that Montreal led by at least two goals, and the third time in five November games that it led by three or more. A team that is that opportunistic early will keep finding itself in this spot, and every time the opponent will raise its risk level. St. Louis was proud of how the Canadiens handled it in their Game 1 win in Toronto, where, after the first period, the Maple Leafs had 20 chances to cross the blue line and dumped the puck in on 17 of them. Last season the Canadiens ranked 31st in the league at forcing dump-ins, so the progress is real. As St. Louis pointed out, though, it is much harder to hold that standard with a three-goal lead than with a one-goal lead.
It also explains why Fowler’s night mattered. Sportsnet noted that he made 16 of his 30 saves after the Canadiens went up 5-0, and the team blocked 23 shots in front of him. Without that, this could have turned into a third blown lead of the season.
Records and Streaks
Fowler is now 5-0 in five road starts this season, with wins in Chicago, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Toronto and Boston. According to the game notes, that ties a Canadiens record for road wins to start a season, set by Charlie Hodge in 1960-61.
The Canadiens have also won six straight road games in regulation, in Chicago, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Dallas, Toronto and Boston. The game notes say it is only the second streak like that for the club in 28 years.
Montreal has trailed for only 174:37 this season, the least in the NHL. Carolina is next at 195:45, followed by Minnesota (224:27), Edmonton (236:03) and Boston (284:31). That fits Thursday’s game, when the Canadiens scored first at 2:34 and never trailed.
StatsCentre on X added more context for the night. Caufield’s eight straight games with a goal against Boston is longer than the seven-game streaks by Howie Morenz (1925-26), Baldy Northcott (1931-33) and Maurice Richard (1944-45), which makes it the longest by a Canadiens player. Only Lorne Carr’s 11 games in 1943-44 is longer on the list. His 12 goals before the team’s 20th game are the seventh most by a Canadiens player since 1977, behind Guy Lafleur (17 in 1979-80 and 16 in 1977-78), Brian Savage (16 in 1995-96), Steve Shutt (15 in 1981-82), Mats Naslund (14 in 1985-86) and Caufield himself last season (13). His even-strength goal on Thursday also gave him 137 in his first 387 career games, the fourth most by a US-born player in his first 400 games, behind Auston Matthews (193), Pat LaFontaine (142) and Joe Mullen (140), and one ahead of Jake Guentzel (136).
Fowler’s 11-game point streak is the second longest by a US-born rookie goalie, behind only Jimmy Howard of the Red Wings (15 in 2009-10) and ahead of Robb Stauber and Jeremy Swayman (10 each) and Ryan Miller (9). His .929 save percentage over his first 15 career road games, helped by Thursday’s 30 saves on 32 shots, is tied for third behind Doug Favell (.935) and Antti Niemi (.930), level with Marty Turco.
The Numbers
| Team | Shots by period | Total | Power play | Penalty minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadiens | 14 – 8 – 9 | 31 | 0/4 | 2 |
| Bruins | 11 – 11 – 10 | 32 | 0/1 | 8 |
| Team | Hits | Blocked shots | Faceoffs | Giveaways | Takeaways |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canadiens | 17 | 23 | 22/50 (44%) | 13 | 3 |
| Bruins | 20 | 6 | 28/50 (56%) | 18 | 5 |
Montreal was outshot 32-31 and outattempted by a wide margin. Our count from the play-by-play, at 5-on-5, shows Boston ahead 62-33 in shot attempts and 21-10 in high-danger attempts (unblocked shots from inside 25 feet and within 15 feet of the middle of the ice). A big part of that is score effects, since a team trailing 5-0 has to push, but the number is a reminder of how the game was won. The Canadiens scored five goals on 31 shots, got two of them on breakaways, blocked 23 shots, and had Fowler behind them.
The power play was 0-for-4 against a Boston team that took four minor penalties, so there is still more to get from the man advantage. The Canadiens took one penalty, a holding call on Hutson in the first period, and the Bruins did not score on it.
What the Advanced Stats Say
MoneyPuck’s expected-goals model had this game almost even: Boston 3.40, Montreal 3.26 across all situations. Its simulation of the game, based on the quality of every shot, gave the Bruins a 50.7 percent chance to win and the Canadiens 49.3 percent. At even strength, Natural Stat Trick is harder on Montreal: Boston led 62-33 in shot attempts (65.3 percent), 37-18 in scoring chances and 3.20-2.15 in expected goals, and its share grew every period, from 55 percent of the attempts in the first to 67 in the second and 78 in the third.
So the difference was finishing and goaltending. Montreal scored five even-strength goals from 2.15 expected goals, while Jacob Fowler faced 3.40 expected goals, allowed two and made 30 saves on 32 shots, which MoneyPuck credits as 1.4 goals saved above expected. At the other end, Jeremy Swayman allowed four goals on 2.16 expected (1.84 goals below expected) before Michael DiPietro finished with one goal against on 1.10 expected.
The Montreal goals were not high-quality chances in the model: MoneyPuck gives Dach’s goal 0.19 expected goals, Anderson’s 0.21, Evans’s 0.17 and Danault’s 0.02. Its game score had Juraj Slafkovský (0.54), Cole Caufield (0.40) and Josh Anderson (0.34) as the top three Canadiens, with David Pastrnak (0.52) and Elias Lindholm (0.49) leading Boston. Expected-goals models also treat a team protecting a lead differently from one chasing it, so the third-period gap says as much about the score as about the play.
What Comes Next
The Canadiens return home on Saturday to host the Colorado Avalanche at 7:00 PM ET at the Bell Centre. Colorado enters at 11-6-3 with 25 points. Kreider’s status is the main question, and the lines and injuries will be on our Lineup Tonight page before the game. You can also read our Bruins preview.
Sources
NHL game data (box score, play-by-play and shift charts), RDS, Sportsnet (SportLogiq entry data and player comments), StatsCentre on X, MoneyPuck and Natural Stat Trick.
Get the HABSHQ Newsletter in Your Inbox
Every Monday, the HABSHQ newsletter brings you the full Canadiens, Rocket, Lions and prospects report, our takes, the stats of the week and the preview of the week ahead, straight to your inbox. It is free.
Get the Habs week in your inbox
Free weekly newsletter from HABSHQ.
Leave a Reply