Same old problems follow the Habs back to the Bell Centre
After a rather successful 2-1 road trip, the Montreal Canadiens were back at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night to face their divisional rivals in the Ottawa Senators. It was a less-than-triumphant return to home ice, culminating in a 5-2 loss that leaves them looking for answers in short order, since they’ll be hosting the Winnipeg Jets this evening.
A lot of the same problems that they faced during their last losing streak were evidently present in the loss, but hey, at least the power play was doing things!
Excellent pass from Cole Caufield to Juraj Slafkovsky, and it’s 1-0 #Habs pic.twitter.com/eg0nxsnFzM
— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) December 3, 2025
The power play might have been good enough to give them a real chance in this game, if not for everything else. The puck movement was crisp, they had Juraj Slafkovsky going to the net, and they gave some different looks than we’re used to seeing, including a beautiful snipe from captain Nick Suzuki. It would be something to get excited about if the play at five-on-five, or the goaltending were up to par.
You can’t lay a loss like this at the feet of Samuel Montembeault, but he didn’t exactly help them out either. Expected goals at five-on-five were 3.45 to 1.34 in Ottawa’s favour, and yet the Habs were outscored 5-0 at that strength. Among goaltenders who have played at least 10 games this season, Montembeault is in the bottom-five for goals-saved above expected. The Habs are in a situation where they have to dominate five-on-five play with him in the net, and they didn’t do that against Ottawa.
So what do they do now? Short of a stud magically appearing between the pipes, they have to focus very hard on their even-strength defence. Not an easy task when they’re still missing one of their top-four defenders in Kaiden Guhle, but we’ve seen them do a far better job of limiting opportunities without him on the ice. They know that their goaltending is a problem as well as we do, so they just can’t afford to be allowing chances in the slot the way they did.
Until there is some kind of change in the crease, they have to find a way to make life a little easier for those in it.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. Were right back in action tonight as the Habs will host the Winnipeg Jets.
