Montreal gets thoroughly outplayed in return home

First period

• After an energetic start, it’s the Senators that make the biggest error by taking a penalty, allowing the Canadiens’ special teams to go to work.
• Linus Ullmark is caught with a shot to the neck from Zachary Bolduc and dazed in his crease. He makes once more stop, but is unable to stop Juraj Slafkovský on the follow-up as Cole Caufield finds him across the crease.

Excellent pass from Cole Caufield to Juraj Slafkovsky, and it’s 1-0 #Habs pic.twitter.com/eg0nxsnFzM

— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) December 3, 2025

• It was the 50th goal of Slafkovský’s career.
• Before the goal can even be announced, Fabian Zetterlund responds with a powerful one-timer that beats Samuel Montembeault. To set things back to square one.
• The Xhekaj Brothers have come out on the ice, and suddenly the rink is very loud, with the glass shuddering under the weight of their checks.
• Ridly Greig almost gets deposited into the Canadiens’ bench. He didn’t even take a slapshot into an empty net to draw that ire.
• Shane Pinto is left open for a shot, then tried for force Montembeault into the net. Jayden Struble tackles him behind the goal line for his transgression. They both go to the box, and you take both the message and the trade-off of Struble and Ottawa’s top scorer.
• Montreal is trying to make passes that aren’t there at the moment, just hoping defending sticks disappear from lanes. Their breakout passes and drops are also off right now.
• While Noah Dobson lays on the ice after a cross-check to the neck from Lars Eller, Jake Evans misses a stick lift and whacks Brady Tkachuk in the face. Now Ottawa’s power play will go to work.
• A big toe save from Montembeault turns aside the first chance.
• The puck gets cleared off the goal line by Mike Matheson a split second before it crosses the line. Montreal survives the kill, and that will be an important thing tonight.
• The forwards are a little too eager to get into the offensive zone and not doing enough work to help get the puck through the neutral zone first. Matheson and Dobson aren’t getting much help in transition. It feels like the plan it to spread out to combat the Sens’ neutral-zone structure, but that doesn’t work if the passes aren’t getting through.
• Defenceman Artem Zub is left completely open in the low slot and makes a few dekes before scoring, with Lane Hutson and Cole Caufield too late to get to him.
• Florian Xhekaj leads a two-on-one, but can’t decided how to attack, and ends up having the puck stripped away.
• Pinto sees the puck get turned over then decided to cross-check Hutson in the knee. That should have been called intent to injure, there’s no other reason to do that.
• The Canadiens can’t score on the 90 seconds of power-play time they get to end the first period.
• That was not a good 20 minutes from Montreal. Clearly the second-best team, with half of their six shots coming on the early power play. They will need to be a lot better in the next two periods to avoid another blowout loss.

Second period

• No goal on the final 50 seconds of the power play either. Now to see if they’ve made any adjustments at five-on-five.
• Struble and Tkachuk have a tussle at the Sens’ bench. Tkachuk leaves the ice with Struble’s stick in his hands. Somehow he avoids a penalty even though Struble then has to defend without it.
• Dobson loses his man and that leads to a puck going off the post behind Montembeault. Before the shift ends he’s caught chasing Jake Sanderson, who steps around Montembeault to give the Senators a 3-1 lead.
• The Canadiens are just chasing the puck around their zone right now. There’s not actual coverage, and it leads to a 4-1 goal as Montembeault spills a rebound to an open Drake Batherson.
• Just a terrible game overall from everybody. No structure, no support, and you can’t do that with no goaltending.
• A rare chance for Montreal is generated by the second line, and that’s good enough to draw a power play. It’s an opportunity for Montreal to get back in a game they have no business being in.
• And they take that opportunity. Nick Suzuki fires in a wrist from the bottom of the right circle to make it 4-2.

Nick Suzuki gives the #Habs a little life perhaps with a short-side snipe on the power play

[image or embed]

— Matt Drake (@drakemt.bsky.social) December 2, 2025 at 9:26 PM

• Montreal didn’t give this goal right back like they did the first one, but Arber is going to the box for putting Dylan Cozens in a headlock which may have just delayed that from happening.
• The diamond formation nearly strikes again. Fortunately the Senators miss the connection on the pass across the crease with only Matheson there to defend it. It simply doesn’t make sense as a tactic against a power play with players along the goal line.
• Dobson is left to walk in on Ullmark, but the goalie makes the save to keep his team up by two.
• Joe Veleno fires a shot off the post. That close to his second goal.
• Then he tips one from the slot that hits Ullmark. That was a good shift from the fourth line, and one of the best Montreal has had all game.
• It was a better period, but not the scrambly sequence that led to two Senators goals. A little more composure after the third goal and its probably just a one-goal game. As it is, Montreal will need to outscore the Senators by two in the final 20 minutes.

Third period

• Martin St-Louis starts Slafkovský’s line, and that plays right into a shift for the top trio. Suzuki comes within a few inches of scoring on a far-side shot.
• Hutson lays out Tkachuk at centre ice after the Sens forward had moved the puck. He’s now yelling at Hutson from the bench.
• Montreal will need to do more than it’s doing right now to score the two goals needed to tie this game.
• The Senators get into Montreal’s zone, and it’s just chaos for about a minute with players flitting around the front of the net.
• Alexandre Carrier flies in from the point and is about to pull off a nice move to get a shot from in tight … but has the puck roll off his stick.
• We’ve passed the midpoint of the period with Montreal no closer on the scoreboard.
• A little more urgency coming out of the TV timeout.
• Brendan Gallagher gets tripped as he tries to keep the puck cycling in the offensive zone. No call on the play.
• And seconds later Tkachuk makes it 5-2 as Montembeault just guesses where the shot is going to come from.
• The team should be pretty embarrassed that that was the response to a 7-2 loss on Saturday, but they have to get ready for another game tomorrow night versus the Winnipeg Jets.
• Ottawa will win this 5-2 and knock Montreal out of a playoff spot.

EOTP 3 Stars

3) You know you’ll get to use it at least once

2) A lot of bark in that dog

1) Change is clearly needed. Let’s see what the response will be