The Canadiens visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, November 7, at 7:00 PM ET at Scotiabank Arena, two days after Cole Caufield scored 30 seconds into overtime to beat Utah 5-4 at the Centre Bell. Montreal is 10-3-3 with 23 points, second in the Atlantic Division, and 7-0-2 in its last nine games, which means the Canadiens have taken at least a point in nine straight since the loss in Washington on October 14. Toronto is 8-7-2 with 18 points, seventh in the Atlantic, and has won once in its last four games. The news on the Montreal side is that Josh Anderson will not play, and the team lists personal reasons. Owen Beck goes into the lineup on the fourth line, and Jake Evans moves up to the second line, Jacob Fowler starts in goal against Sergei Bobrovsky, and John Tavares is back for Toronto.

Canadiens Lines: Anderson Out, Beck In

The defense pairs and power-play units are the same as in the win over Utah, and the forward lines change in two places. Josh Anderson is out for personal reasons. Jake Evans moves up to center the second line between Chris Kreider and Alex Newhook, and Owen Beck, who has three points (1 goal, 2 assists) in five games this season, joins Oliver Kapanen and Kirby Dach on the fourth line. Dach also takes Anderson’s place on the first penalty-kill unit. Nick Suzuki stays between Juraj Slafkovský and Caufield on the first line and the first power-play unit, and the third line is unchanged. Florian Xhekaj remains out of the lineup.

Canadiens Lines	Saturday at Toronto
Line 1	Juraj Slafkovský, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield
Line 2	Chris Kreider, Jake Evans, Alex Newhook
Line 3	Alexandre Texier, Phillip Danault, Zachary Bolduc
Line 4	Owen Beck, Oliver Kapanen, Kirby Dach
Defense 1	Lane Hutson, Noah Dobson
Defense 2	Kaiden Guhle, Alexandre Carrier
Defense 3	Arber Xhekaj, Adam Engström
Goalie	Jacob Fowler (starts), Jakub Dobeš (backup)
Power play 1	Caufield, Slafkovský, Suzuki, Hutson, Bolduc
Power play 2	Kreider, Newhook, Dobson, Texier, Dach
Penalty kill 1	Phillip Danault, Kaiden Guhle, Alexandre Carrier, Kirby Dach (in for Anderson)
Out	Josh Anderson (personal reasons), Florian Xhekaj

The forwards scored five times against Utah, with goals from Suzuki, Arber Xhekaj, Dach, Adam Engström and Caufield, tied the game three times after trailing, and outshot the Mammoth 35-20. Losing Anderson still matters. He has 7 goals and 10 points in 16 games, is +8, and leads the Canadiens with 34 hits, so the second line loses its physical edge and its forecheck against a Toronto team that gives up 29.7 shots a game. Evans gives that line a center who is trusted in all three zones, and Kreider and Newhook will have to carry more of the work on the forecheck. The cost shows up on the fourth line, which loses Evans’ steadiness. Beck is a smart, responsible winger who wins puck battles and stays on the right side of the puck, and he has to give Kapanen and Dach a clean, simple game. Dach on the penalty kill is the other thing to watch, because Toronto has the fourth-best penalty kill and the sixth-best power play in the league, and Montreal cannot afford a weak first unit when it takes a penalty.

The Goalies

Martin St-Louis goes with Fowler, who is 7-1-1 with a .925 save percentage and a 2.17 goals-against average in nine games. He wants to bounce back from Tuesday, when he allowed four goals in 126 seconds as Winnipeg erased a 4-0 deficit and then lost in overtime, which ended his seven-game win streak. His only other loss was his first start of the season, on October 8 against Nashville, so a goalie who has lost twice in nine games has earned the chance to answer. Jakub Dobeš, who started against Utah and is 3-2-2 with a .847 save percentage and a 4.04 goals-against average in seven games, is the backup. Fowler will need help in front of him, because Toronto is seventh in the league in goals per game.

Toronto goes with Bobrovsky, its number one goalie, who has had a hard season. He is 3-6-2 with a .889 save percentage and a 3.27 goals-against average in 11 games. He lost to the Canadiens in the season opener on September 29 and has not been much better since. Anthony Stolarz is 5-1-0 with a .910 save percentage and a 2.66 goals-against average in six games, so Toronto has the steadier numbers on the bench, but Jim Hiller is trusting his starter. If Montreal gets traffic and the first goal, Bobrovsky’s confidence is the story.

Know Your Opponent: The Maple Leafs

Toronto scores 3.65 goals a game (7th in the league) and allows 3.24 (19th). It shoots 28.2 times a game (10th) but gives up 29.7 (27th), so the Leafs do not control the shot count, and Montreal should get its chances if it plays the way it did Thursday.

Auston Matthews leads the team with 26 points (11 goals, 15 assists) in 17 games and is +9. He has a point in five straight games, with eight points in that stretch, and he is tied with Caufield at 11 goals. William Nylander has 21 points (10 goals, 11 assists), Jack Roslovic has 18, Kirill Marchenko has 14 points in 14 games, and rookie Gavin McKenna has 11. Morgan Rielly has 12 assists from the back end, and Darren Raddysh plays the most minutes at 23:37 a night. Nylander scored both Toronto goals in Montreal’s 3-2 win on September 29, so he is the player to watch.

John Tavares returns after missing nine games with a lower-body injury. He has two goals and five assists in seven games this season, and Hiller said he was the best Toronto player in the last two practices. That puts a veteran center back into the Leafs lineup on a night when Montreal is a forward short of its usual group, and the Canadiens will have to account for him on the power play too.

The Leafs finished a four-game western trip 2-2 with a 7-2 win in Edmonton and a 4-2 win in Vancouver, and they lost 5-4 in Seattle and 5-2 in Calgary. They have been off since Tuesday’s loss to Utah and are 3-3 in their last six.

Special Teams Will Decide a Lot

This is the matchup to watch, and it is not close on paper. Toronto’s power play is at 28.8 percent, sixth in the league, and its penalty kill is at 88.1 percent, fourth. Montreal’s power play is at 14.0 percent, 30th, and its penalty kill is at 78.5 percent, 14th. Every penalty against Matthews, Nylander and Rielly hands Toronto its best weapon, and the Canadiens cannot count on their own power play to win the game.

The Canadiens have shown they can climb out of a hole, but they trailed Utah 2-0 after nine minutes on Thursday, and a deficit against a power play at 28.8 percent can get away fast. Stay out of the box, get the first goal and keep the shot count going, and this is a game Montreal can win.

Milestones to Watch

Caufield has 11 goals in 16 games and 180 for his career, 20 away from 200. Lane Hutson leads the Canadiens with 16 points (3 goals, 13 assists) and plays 24:59 a night. Alexandre Texier plays his 300th NHL game, 201 with Columbus, 39 with St. Louis and, on Saturday, his 60th regular-season game with the Canadiens. Caufield has five goals in his last four games, Suzuki has a point in five straight games (five points in four games before his injury and three on his return Thursday), and Matthews has the same kind of streak for Toronto.

Congratulations to Alexandre Texier of the Montréal #GoHabsGo on playing in his 300th career NHL game this evening! #WeAreGoldStar! pic.twitter.com/qoLLwjYEQ9

— Dan Milstein (@HockeyAgent1) November 7, 2026

Injury Updates

Josh Anderson is out for personal reasons. Mike Matheson (lower body, out two weeks as of November 3), Samuel Montembeault (lower body, day to day) and Ivan Demidov (foot, injured reserve, longer than the original two to four weeks) remain on the injury list. Suzuki and Dach are back after their injuries. Toronto’s John Tavares returns from a lower-body injury, and the rest of the Leafs lineup had not been announced when this was written. Check our injury report and lineup page for the latest.

History and What Comes Next

Montreal is 9-9-2 against Toronto in 20 regular-season meetings since 2021-22, with 50 goals for and 62 against, and has won four of the last five: 3-2 in Toronto on September 29, 3-1 at home on March 10, 2-1 in a shootout in Toronto on December 6 and 5-2 at home on November 22, 2025. Toronto won the other one 5-2 on October 8, 2025. After Saturday, the Canadiens host Minnesota on Tuesday, November 10, and visit Boston on November 12, while the Leafs host New Jersey on Sunday and Colorado on Tuesday. Read our recap of the Utah game and our look at Suzuki’s impact before Saturday’s game.

The plan for Saturday is simple: stay disciplined, score first and make sure the second line does not feel the loss of Anderson. Montreal has the form and the better record, Toronto has the better power play and Tavares back, and in this rivalry one power-play goal can decide it. A tenth straight game with a point would be a statement in Toronto.

Sources: official NHL statistics, game data, NHL.com and RDS.