The Canadiens led 4-0 early in the third period and lost 5-4 in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night at the Centre Bell. Winnipeg scored four times in 2:06, from 17:21 to 19:27 of the third, tied the game with 33 seconds left, and Dylan Samberg won it at 3:30 of overtime on 3-on-3. The Jets outshot Montreal 47-22. Jacob Fowler stopped 42 of 47 shots (.894) and Stuart Skinner stopped 18 of 22 (.818). The Canadiens (9-3-3, 21 points) saw their five-game winning streak end, and the Jets snapped a nine-game winless run.
How Montreal Built a 4-0 Lead
The start was strong. The fourth line scored first: Owen Beck beat Skinner with a snap shot at 3:05 of the first period, with assists to Florian Xhekaj and Arber Xhekaj. The brothers became the first set of brothers to both factor on the same goal for the Canadiens since Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn on January 17, 2009, and it was the first goal in NHL history with points by multiple players whose last names begin with the letter X. Josh Anderson made it 2-0 at 18:18 with a backhand, set up by Chris Kreider and Kaiden Guhle. Then the power play, which had gone 0-for-3 on Saturday, finally delivered. With Winnipeg two men short, Cole Caufield scored on a slap shot at 4:00 of the second for his first goal against the Jets, which means he has now scored against every team he has faced in his career. Noah Dobson and Juraj Slafkovský had the assists. Caufield added a second power-play goal 46 seconds into the third on a snap shot, assisted by Lane Hutson and Slafkovský. That made it 4-0 on 15 shots.
Fowler is the reason it stayed 4-0 until then. Winnipeg had 30 shots through two periods against Montreal’s 14, and Fowler stopped every one of them. The lead was real on the scoreboard, but it was not a lead built on controlling the game.
Four Goals in 2:06
Winnipeg needed just 2:06 to erase it. Those four goals were the fastest four in a game in Jets franchise history, beating four in 2:16 on November 9, 1984. Tyrel Bauer, who had fought Arber Xhekaj earlier in the period, scored his first NHL goal at 17:21 on a snap shot. At 18:03 Morgan Barron made it 4-2 with another snap shot. Winnipeg pulled Skinner at 18:11 with 1:49 left, and Kyle Connor scored on the 6-on-5 at 19:00 to make it 4-3. Then, with 35 seconds left, Alexandre Carrier was called for tripping Cole Perfetti, and Connor tied it at 19:27 with the extra attacker on the ice, 6-on-4. In overtime, on 3-on-3, Samberg scored at 3:30 with assists to Adam Lowry and Gabriel Vilardi. Over the last 7:39 of regulation, Winnipeg put nine shots on goal and four of them went in, while Montreal did not register a single shot on goal.
Winnipeg’s four goals started with 2:39 left in regulation; the tying goal came with 33 seconds left. It is the latest start of a comeback from four goals down in NHL history; the previous latest began at 52:46 of the third period, by the Kings on November 10, 2007.
| Period | Time | Team | Scorer | Assists | Strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3:05 | MTL | Beck (1) | F. Xhekaj, A. Xhekaj | Even strength |
| 1 | 18:18 | MTL | Anderson (7) | Kreider, Guhle | Even strength |
| 2 | 4:00 | MTL | Caufield (9) | Dobson, Slafkovský | Power play (5-on-3) |
| 3 | 0:46 | MTL | Caufield (10) | Hutson, Slafkovský | Power play |
| 3 | 17:21 | WPG | Bauer (1) | Koepke, DeMelo | Even strength |
| 3 | 18:03 | WPG | Barron (2) | Bauer, DeMelo | Even strength |
| 3 | 19:00 | WPG | Connor (12) | Scheifele | 6-on-5 |
| 3 | 19:27 | WPG | Connor (13) | Scheifele, Barron | 6-on-4 |
| OT | 3:30 | WPG | Samberg (2) | Lowry, Vilardi | 3-on-3 |
Why It Slipped Away
The collapse was not a two-minute accident. It was the end of a night in which Winnipeg had the puck most of the time: 54-38 in shot attempts at 5-on-5, 47-22 in shots on goal overall. With a four-goal lead, the job is simple. Make safe plays, get pucks deep, win the board battles and change on the fly. Instead, Montreal stopped attacking. After the 4-0 goal, the Canadiens managed only six more shots on goal in the rest of regulation, and the last one came at 12:21 of the third. A team that is not threatening gives the other side the puck, the territory and the belief that the game is still alive.
Discipline played a part too. Montreal took 22 penalty minutes, including fighting majors by Arber Xhekaj and Florian Xhekaj, and the fights did not change the momentum. At 4-0 the Canadiens needed calm and structure, not more emotion. The Carrier penalty at 19:25 made a bad situation worse, because Winnipeg was already pressing with six skaters.
Game Numbers
| Canadiens | Jets | |
|---|---|---|
| Shots on goal | 22 | 47 |
| 5-on-5 shot attempts | 38 | 54 |
| Goalie saves | Fowler 42 of 47 (.894) | Skinner 18 of 22 (.818) |
| Power play | 2 for 4 | 1 for 5 |
| Penalty minutes | 22 | 20 |
| Hits | 16 | 20 |
| Blocked shots | 23 | 9 |
| Giveaways | 14 | 10 |
| Faceoffs won | 39 of 81 (48.1%) | 42 of 81 (51.9%) |
Official NHL game data. Shot attempts at 5-on-5 counted from the NHL play-by-play (shots on goal, misses and blocks).
5-on-5: What the Underlying Numbers Say
At 5-on-5, Winnipeg had the edge in every category, but the margins were smaller than the 47-22 shot total suggests. The Jets led 54-38 in shot attempts (58.7 percent), 35-30 in unblocked attempts, 29-16 in shots on goal, 22-17 in scoring chances, 11-9 in high-danger chances and 2.57-1.84 in expected goals (58.3 percent). Two of those numbers matter most: the high-danger chances were close, and the 5-on-5 score was 2-2, with Beck and Anderson scoring for Montreal and Bauer and Barron for Winnipeg.
That tells us where the game was really lost. Of Winnipeg’s 47 shots, 29 came at 5-on-5. The rest came on the power play (Fowler faced 10 shots there), with the extra attacker and in overtime. Three of Winnipeg’s five goals did not come at 5-on-5: Connor’s two with the net empty and Samberg’s winner on 3-on-3. The Canadiens were not outplayed by a huge margin at even strength. They lost the game in the final three minutes, in the situations where structure, discipline and composure matter most.
Fowler Did Not Lose This Game
Fowler faced 47 shots, 33 of 37 at even strength and 9 of 10 on the Winnipeg power play, and kept the Canadiens in front for 57 minutes. His seven-game winning streak is over, and he is now 7-1-1 with a .925 save percentage and a 2.17 goals-against average. The blame for this game belongs to the team in front of him, which gave up the puck, the zone and the time and space. Fowler stopped 30 shots in the first 40 minutes just to protect a 3-0 lead.
Who Stood Out
Caufield scored twice on the power play and has 10 goals in 15 games. Slafkovský had two assists and has now recorded a point in five straight games against Winnipeg. His two-point night also moved him past Guy Lafleur (44) for the third-most multi-point games by a Canadiens player at age 22 or younger, behind only Stéphane Richer (53) and Henri Richard (49). Beck and Anderson scored at even strength, and the fourth line of Beck, Florian Xhekaj and Oliver Kapanen gave the team energy. For Winnipeg, Connor scored twice on eight shots and Scheifele had two assists. Connor now has 13 goals in 16 games.
What the Players and Coach Said
Cole Caufield, who scored twice, did not hide his frustration after the game. “I presume we thought the game was over,” he said.
Martin St-Louis put the responsibility on his own group. “We inflicted this result on ourselves. Few players had a good game,” he said. “It was one of our worst games at five-on-five.”
Asked how the team would respond, St-Louis said he had never lived through a collapse like this one. “Everything was going well for us lately and, all of a sudden, you get hit in the teeth. Maybe it is the thing you needed as a team. We will analyze, we will correct and we will move forward.” He also pointed to the mental side of the game: “If you let a failure dictate what comes next… you have to be mentally stronger.”
Kaiden Guhle was asked if the team got complacent with a 4-0 lead. His answer was short: “Yes, probably.” He added that the group had felt it during the five-game winning streak. “We clearly felt there were games where we could play better. We were finding ways to win. This time, it played a trick on us and caught up with us.” Looking ahead, he said: “We will get back up, look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what we can improve.”
Josh Anderson took the blame as a leader. “It is part of my mandate to be a leader on this team, and I did not do my job,” he said.
Quotes translated from French.
Coach’s Take: The Biggest Collapse in Canadiens History
In my opinion, this was the biggest collapse in Canadiens history. A 4-0 lead with 2:39 left in regulation should be a finished game, and the Canadiens still found a way to lose it. That is why this one will be remembered.
What It Means and What Comes Next
Montreal is 9-3-3 with 21 points and sits second in the Atlantic Division. The point still helps in the standings, but this one will stay with the team because of how it ended. The Canadiens host Utah on Thursday, November 5, and visit Toronto on Saturday, November 7. See the Lineup Tonight page, the Injury Report and our Jets preview. For earlier games, read the Penguins recap and our Fowler Calder case article.
Sources: official NHL statistics, Natural Stat Trick, HABSHQ analysis of the NHL play-by-play data, and RDS.
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