Habs Weekly: A Decent Return Home

After their long road trip, the Habs returned home to kick off a long stretch of home games.  While the week didn’t end particularly well, Montreal played a pair of solid games in their first two contests, allowing them to come away with a reasonable four points.

The Week That Was

Jan. 7: Canadiens 4, Flames 1 – Dustin Wolf had a strong start for Calgary in this one and it looked as if it could be another low-scoring affair as their first matchup was.  However, the Habs were able to bust through in the second period with three goals in a 5:02 span to grab control.  An early goal from Cole Caufield in the third sealed it while Alexandre Texier had his first career three-point game.

Jan. 8: Canadiens 6, Panthers 2 – For whatever reason, Montreal seems to have Florida’s number at the moment and that continued in this game.  They weren’t racking up the shots but they had some good ones to make it a rough night for Sergei Bobrovsky while staying in command of the game for the majority of the time.  Texier had his second career three-point game in this one, this time in the form of a hat trick.

Jan. 10: Red Wings 4, Canadiens 0 – Saturdays haven’t been kind to the Habs in 2026 as it’s the second straight one they’ve been shut out.  Detroit came in and really limited Montreal offensively, keeping them to the outside while the Canadiens also missed the net more frequently than not.  That made for a relatively easy night for John Gibson while Alex DeBrincat had a three-point effort to pace the Red Wings offensively.

StatPack

Skaters:

#	Player	GP	G	A	+/-	PIMS	SOG	ATOI
8	Mike Matheson	3	0	2	E	0	7	24:04
11	Brendan Gallagher	3	0	0	-2	4	5	13:43
13	Cole Caufield	3	1	1	+2	0	10	15:56
14	Nick Suzuki	3	0	2	+2	0	6	21:00
20	Juraj Slafkovsky	3	1	2	+1	4	3	17:32
21	Kaiden Guhle	1	0	0	E	0	2	18:13
24	Phillip Danault	3	0	1	-1	4	3	17:42
27	Samuel Blais	3	0	1	+1	2	4	8:48
45	Alexandre Carrier	3	0	2	+3	2	1	19:29
47	Jayden Struble	2	0	0	+3	2	1	13:05
48	Lane Hutson	3	1	1	+2	0	4	23:52
53	Noah Dobson	3	1	0	-2	0	6	21:07
62	Owen Beck	3	0	0	E	2	3	8:39
72	Arber Xhekaj	3	0	0	+3	14	4	12:24
76	Zachary Bolduc	3	0	0	-1	0	3	12:41
85	Alexandre Texier	3	4	2	+5	2	10	16:21
90	Joe Veleno	3	0	1	+2	0	3	12:21
91	Oliver Kapanen	3	2	2	+1	2	6	16:54
93	Ivan Demidov	3	0	0	E	0	1	15:50

Goalies:

#	Player	Record	GAA	SV%	SO
32	Jacob Fowler	1-1-0	2.06	.923	0
35	Samuel Montembeault	1-0-0	2.00	.926	0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Cole Caufield (21)
Assists: Lane Hutson (36)
Points: Nick Suzuki (48)
+/-: Nick Suzuki (+16)
PIMS: Arber Xhekaj (85)
Shots: Cole Caufield (128)

News And Notes

– Kaiden Guhle was activated off injured reserve, giving Montreal a fully healthy back end.  As a result, Adam Engstrom was sent down to Laval.

– Nick Suzuki is now the sixth player in NHL history to begin his career with 500 consecutive games played.

– Samuel Blais played in his tenth game on recall against Detroit.  That means his waiver exemption has expired and that he’d need to go through waivers again to return to Laval.

Last Game’s Lines:

Caufield – Suzuki – Texier
Slafkovsky – Kapanen – Demidov
Bolduc – Danault – Gallagher
Blais – Veleno – Beck

Matheson – Dobson
Hutson – Carrier
Guhle – Xhekaj

The Week Ahead

Monday vs Vancouver – The Canucks briefly saw a spark after they moved Quinn Hughes but they’ve fallen back to reality having lost six straight games while losing starting goalie Thatcher Demko to yet another injury (though Kevin Lankinen is a strong backup).  They have a relatively balanced attack; no one has more than 26 points but eight have at least 20 (as many as Montreal, for context).  They’re also quite banged up when it comes to their forwards with Marco Rossi, Filip Chytil, and Conor Garland among those missing though the latter is expected back on this road trip so he could be available against the Habs.

Tuesday vs Washington – In what will be Montreal’s fifth game in seven days, they get a tough matchup in the Capitals, a top-ten team both offensively and defensively.  However, the Canadiens might catch them without their leading point-getter as Tom Wilson recently was placed on injured reserve.  Ryan Leonard sits fourth in points by a rookie this season, one ahead of Oliver Kapanen, despite his ice time still being somewhat limited.  Jakob Chychrun is having a career year from the back end with 15 goals already, putting the former Senator on pace for close to a 30-goal season.

Thursday at Buffalo – It seems like each year, the Sabres go on at least one particularly long hot streak.  They’re in that right now having won 13 of their last 14 games.  Marc Bergevin’s new team (he’s their associate GM) has seen newcomer Josh Doan step into a top-six role while Jason Zucker and Josh Norris, when healthy, have produced close to a point per game.  As a result, the extra depth has boosted up their offence to a mid-tier group instead of being near the back.  With Alex Lyon injured, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (who has been speculatively tied to Montreal at times this season) has taken back the starting job and has turned his season around nicely.

Saturday at Ottawa – It hasn’t been fun for the Senators lately.  Off-ice stuff hasn’t helped but they’re without starter Linus Ullmark while backup Leevi Merilainen has struggled, leading to them signing James Reimer for extra support.  Aside from Ullmark, they’re about as healthy as they’ve been all season and boast a four-line attack that’s capable of outscoring a lot of teams but simply haven’t done so most nights.  The Sens are currently last in the Atlantic Division so there’s extra pressure to turn things around quickly or risk falling out of the playoff race entirely.

Final Thought

It briefly looked like the Habs were going to use a pure three-goalie rotation to keep everyone relatively fresh but that hasn’t been the case lately with Jakub Dobes being the odd one out.  As a result, he has played just twice since December 19th which is hardly ideal for a young goaltender.  I get keeping three up for this five-in-seven stretch but once that ends early this week, I think this may be the time to send Dobes to Laval to get some game action.

This isn’t a situation like Samuel Montembeault where he went on a conditioning stint to avoid going through waivers.  Dobes is waiver-exempt so he can simply be sent down, even if the intent is just to play him for a few games.  That would open up a roster spot with some forwards believed to be nearing returns from injury and would also get them a little closer to exiting LTIR and opening up cap space again, at least until he returns.  He’s on a one-way deal too so it’s not as if the demotion would cost him any money.

It’s not about being punitive with Dobes.  The reality is simply that having a young goalie sitting for extended stretches isn’t ideal and when you have a farm team that is more or less down the road and a waiver-exempt player, the player shouldn’t be sitting for too long.  Give Dobes a week or two with the Rocket and then reassess from there as to go back to three goalies or two.  But keeping Dobes out of action this long isn’t helping anyone.