Canadiens lose – The Montreal Canadiens suffered their first consecutive losses in 71 days, falling 3-2 in overtime to the Carolina Hurricanes after a 3-2 overtime win for Carolina on Saturday following Montreal’s Game 1 victory.
MONTREAL — For two nights in a row, the Canadiens played with the puck in dangerous spots and chances in their hands, then watched one crucial moment slip away.
Two nights after becoming just the second team in NHL history to record as few as 12 shots in a Stanley Cup Playoff game that went beyond regulation, Montreal generated just 13 shots and ended up with the same result: a 3-2 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Carolina hadn’t beaten the Canadiens all season. Then Montreal stole Game 1 with a 3-2 overtime win, and the Hurricanes responded Saturday with their own 3-2 overtime decision. In both games, Montreal was one shot away from winning. In both games. they couldn’t find a way to land that shot on net. let alone turn it into the goal that would end it.
The overtime played out like that again. Andrei Svechnikov launched the point shot that tipped off Juraj Slafkovsky at 74:04 to open the extra period’s scoring.
Montreal had chances to erase it. Nick Suzuki missed the net on a breakaway 35 seconds into overtime. Mike Matheson fired a shot into the crossbar 25 seconds later. Alex Newhook’s attempt through a screen hit Frederik Andersen’s toe. and it didn’t initially count as a shot on net until it was reviewed and added long after Svechnikov’s winner had been scored.
Lane Hutson felt the weight of the loss in a different way. He got caught between two decisions and said he made the wrong one on the play. He blamed himself twice, and the Canadiens’ end came shortly after his turnover near his own blue line.
Coach Martin St. Louis said the problem wasn’t only what happened in overtime, but how Montreal got there. “I think we’re missing too many chances to get in on the forecheck and go get the puck back. ” he said. “They’re a team that is hard to put good pucks in on because they’re really on top of you. But you have to find a way. I found that, at the blue line, we didn’t read situations well enough. We should’ve put more pucks deep and gotten in on the forecheck. and there’s a balance between possessing on the other side of the blue line and getting it past them and going to get it.”.
SportLogiq tracked zone-entry success rate for Montreal at just 40 per cent. When the Canadiens did get in, St. Louis said they made better plays in possession than they did in Game 2, but he acknowledged it still wasn’t enough.
“We can still do a better job of holding onto pucks in the offensive zone,” Mike Matheson said. “and generating more time in the O-zone.”
The task has been monumental for Montreal over the last two games because Carolina is doing what it’s done through most of this postseason. The Hurricanes were disconnected and gave Montreal far too much space in a 6-2 Game 1 loss. yet they rebounded with the crisp execution that helped them claim eight consecutive wins before the Eastern Conference Final. They suffocated the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers. and now. across the better part of two games. they’ve worked to control the Canadiens’ rhythm.
Cole Caufield pointed to the experience behind that pressure. “They’ve been on top of the league for the last couple of years and you know there’s a reason why they’ve consistently been in this position (The Hurricanes are in their third conference final since 2023). ” he said. “You can ask every team; they’re a tough team to play and they’ve been doing it for a while. So. I guess they’re all really on the same page and we’ve just got to find ways to break them down.”.
On Monday, Montreal couldn’t keep that from turning inward. Giving up 38 shots to a volume-shooting Hurricanes team was one issue. The other was what those shots looked like. Carolina generated 11 shots from nine feet or less. a scoring profile that would likely have produced a bigger deficit if not for Jakub Dobes.
Dobes made two saves in succession on Taylor Hall and Logan Stankoven before Svechnikov tipped a shot past Slafkovsky’s passing lane—ending it as the puck found its way to the kind of moment that flips a series.
Hutson couldn’t separate his own mistake from what Dobes was trying to hold together. “(Dobes has) been great all playoffs. Not surprised,” he said. “He battled so hard. It sucks that I blew it for him, but it is what it is.”
St. Louis, asked about the decision that led to the winning goal, offered a careful response that put the result on more than one player. “I didn’t love the play (from Hutson), but whatever,” he said. “It’s what’s next, and we didn’t do what’s next. We didn’t get the job done.”
The coach was talking about the winner, but the frustration extended beyond a single misstep. St. Louis had reasons to point to how little offensive-zone pressure Montreal produced—less than 23 minutes of offensive-zone time—while Carolina stayed in control.
This is where the Canadiens’ chances look most cruel. They wobbled too much in the earlier games despite being one shot away from winning, and that’s a hard thing to overcome against a team that has fired on all cylinders for all but one game of these playoffs.
Montreal had to account for its own season realities, too. Carolina was coming off an 11-day break between the second round and the third before playing the one game that drew them here. which left the Hurricanes rusty for a stretch—but the Canadiens showed in that one game what a heavy lift can look like when Montreal is ready.
Now they’re chasing another version of it. Hutson said it plainly: “We definitely have another level.”
He and Matheson, who each scored Monday, will need that level, and so will everyone else, before Wednesday’s Game 4. Montreal will have a chance to even the series 2-2 and improve its playoff home record to 3-5.
St. Louis said the fix can’t come from one adjustment. “You need everything working against a team like that,” he said. “You’re at this stage right now, you’ve got to put it all together. Execution’s part of that. Jam is part of that. It’s not one thing. We’ve just got to put it all together. I know we can. We didn’t expect this to be easy, and we’re OK with that.”.
Montreal Canadiens Carolina Hurricanes NHL playoffs overtime Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Jakub Dobes Frederik Andersen Juraj Slafkovsky Andrei Svechnikov Nick Suzuki Mike Matheson Lane Hutson Martin St. Louis Cole Caufield