On Tuesday night the Canadiens led Winnipeg 4-0 with 2:39 left in regulation and lost 5-4 in overtime. The Jets scored four times in roughly two minutes, the fastest four goals the franchise has ever allowed, and Dylan Samberg finished it 3:30 into overtime. Martin St-Louis said he had never been part of anything like it. But the most important thing he said afterward was not about those two minutes. It was about the 58 minutes before them: the details had been slipping for a while, and the results were hiding it. The one group that did not slip was the Habs kid line of Owen Beck, Florian Xhekaj and Oliver Kapanen, and how long that trio stays together may decide a roster spot.

How It Fell Apart

The first Winnipeg goal came at 17:21 of the third period. The second followed at 18:03, and after that goal the Jets pulled their goalie. The third came at 19:00 and the fourth at 19:27, both with the extra attacker on the ice. Montreal went from comfortable to chasing the game in about two minutes, and the overtime winner was almost a formality after that.

The shot count tells you this was not a lead built on control. Winnipeg outshot the Canadiens 47-22, and Jacob Fowler stopped 42 of 47 (.894). Fowler was excellent for most of the night, and that is exactly the problem St-Louis described: when a goalie bails you out, the game looks better than it is.

The Details Had Been Slipping

St-Louis put it plainly. In his view the team’s details had gone down: faceoffs, changes and structure. Early in the season those details were much better and the record was not as good as it is now. Big goals and big saves have been covering the gap. The numbers agree with him. The Canadiens are 4-0-1 in their last five games, but they have been outshot 175-112 over that stretch.

Metric	First 10 GP	Last 5 GP
Record	5-3-2	4-0-1
Shots for per game	29.5	22.4
Shots against per game	25.8	35.0
Shot share	53.3%	39.0%

The entry numbers show where it starts. The Canadiens’ entry denial has dropped to 45.4% over the last five games, 30th in the league, after 51.1% (12th) in the first ten. The share of opposing entries that end up as dump-ins is 46.9%, last in the league, and the rate at which they recover those dump-ins fell from 72.3% (8th) to 69.3% (23rd).

Entry Metric	First 10 GP	Last 5 GP
Denial %	51.1% (12th)	45.4% (30th)
Dump-in %	49.5% (29th)	46.9% (32nd)
Dump-in recovery %	72.3% (8th)	69.3% (23rd)

In coaching terms, teams are carrying the puck over our blue line more easily, and when they chip it in we are winning fewer of the races. That is gap control and five-man support. When it slips, the goalie sees more rushes and more traffic, and the shot counts climb.

The players described the same thing from the inside. Zachary Bolduc said that after the first goal against, you grip the stick tighter, then another mistake follows, and hockey is too fast a game to recover from that. He said the group has to slow everything down late in games. Alexandre Carrier said Fowler cannot carry the blame: the team has to be better in front of him, help him see pucks and cut down odd-man rushes. Jake Evans said the effort was not good enough and has to become motivation, and Fowler himself called the game embarrassing and said a point might look good later in the season, but not on how it was played.

St-Louis compared it to Saturday’s 5-4 win over Pittsburgh. Both games had ups and downs. The difference was the goaltending: Jakub Dobes did not save them every time against the Penguins, while Fowler held the Jets off for 57 minutes. He said the team needed to get hit in the teeth to raise its standards, and that the process problems he saw coming were supposed to be addressed Wednesday, not by losing a game. The team met, was direct about it and went on the ice to work on the things that needed fixing.

The Habs Kid Line Is the Exception

One unit has not been part of the slippage: Owen Beck, Florian Xhekaj and Oliver Kapanen. Beck is 22, Xhekaj is 22 and Kapanen is 23, all drafted by Montreal. They play the fourth-line minutes (Beck 8:42 a game, Xhekaj 7:53, Kapanen 12:40), but they shared the ice for 14:41 across the Pittsburgh and Winnipeg games and the Canadiens outshot the opposition 12-3 in that time, with a 16-6 edge in unblocked attempts and two goals for, none against. It is a small sample, but it is the only line that is doing the little things right.

Game	Time Together	Shots on Goal	Goals
Oct. 31 vs PIT (W 5-4)	7:02	3-0	1-0
Nov. 3 vs WPG (L 5-4 OT)	7:39	9-3	1-0
Total	14:41	12-3	2-0

Their identity is simple: forecheck, finish checks and get the puck deep. Beck and Xhekaj combined for nine hits in those two games. Kapanen tied the Pittsburgh game 33 seconds after the Penguins scored, with Beck and Xhekaj assisting, and Beck opened the scoring against Winnipeg at 3:05 of the first period, set up by Xhekaj and Xhekaj’s brother Arber. The soft spot is the dot, with Kapanen winning 14% of his draws against Pittsburgh and Beck winning 25% against Winnipeg, which is the same detail St-Louis is talking about.

Beck is leaving a calling card. After two quiet games to open the season he has points in each of his last three appearances: an assist in Chicago, an assist against Pittsburgh and the goal against Winnipeg. The problem is the roster. Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach skated Wednesday and are both game-time decisions, while Ivan Demidov did not skate with the group. Fifteen forwards have dressed for Montreal this season and only twelve play on a given night. Suzuki and Demidov go straight into the top six and the squeeze lands on the fourth line. The trio will not win a spot on minutes, because they do not get many. They win it by being the line that does not give anything back, and if they keep doing that, the Canadiens may have to open a spot for Beck at some point.

Tonight: Utah Comes to the Bell Centre

The Canadiens host the Utah Mammoth tonight at the Bell Centre, and the lineup is still open. Suzuki and Dach are both game-time decisions, Alex Newhook had a treatment day on Wednesday but is expected to play, and Demidov did not skate with the group. St-Louis could not confirm any of the returns, so the combinations may not be set until warmups. That uncertainty matters for the kid line too, because every healthy forward who comes back pushes someone down the lineup.

Montreal has had the better of this matchup. In the last four meetings the Canadiens are 3-0-1, and tonight is game number five. The only blemish was an overtime loss at the Bell Centre in November 2024.

Date	Result
Nov. 26, 2024	Utah 3, Montreal 2 (OT)
Jan. 14, 2025	Montreal 5, Utah 3
Nov. 8, 2025	Montreal 6, Utah 2
Nov. 26, 2025	Montreal 4, Utah 3

History will not help much against this team, because Utah is good. The Mammoth are 10-6-0 with 20 points, second in their division and fourth in the conference, and they beat Toronto 3-2 on Tuesday. They have scored 57 goals in 16 games, led by a group that can hurt you in a hurry. Clayton Keller has 21 points (4 goals, 17 assists), Logan Cooley has 17 points and 8 goals, tied with Nick Schmaltz for the team lead, and Dylan Guenther has 6 goals and 11 points. Mikhail Sergachev adds 19 points from the back end, so the offence does not come only from the forwards.

There is an opening for Montreal, and it is the same one the kid line likes to live in. Utah’s goaltenders, Karel Vejmelka (.872) and Sebastian Cossa (.875), have both been below average in save percentage, so traffic, second chances and a heavy forecheck matter. The question is whether the Canadiens can put that pressure on without handing Utah the rush chances that Keller, Cooley and Guenther want.

That is why the big question tonight has nothing to do with Utah’s talent. It is how the Canadiens bounce back from the most embarrassing moment of their season. St-Louis made the message clear: the standards come back, the details come back and the game does not end until the clock says it does. Watch the blue-line entries and dump-in recoveries early, the shot counts through two periods, and above all the final five minutes if the Canadiens are ahead. Last time, they lost control of that part of the game. Tonight, we find out whether the lesson stuck.

Sources: NHL play-by-play, box score and shift data; RDS; Radio-Canada / La Presse Canadienne; The Athletic (entry-denial metrics).