Five habs players earn two points in a victory against the Hurricanes

Michaël Petit
Five habs players earn two points in a victory against the Hurricanes
Credit: DansLesCoulisses.com

The Montreal Canadiens took on the Hurricanes in Carolina on the first day of 2026.

Minutes before the start of the game, the Habs announced that defenseman Mike Matheson would not be in uniform due to an upper-body injury.

Here's Martin St-Louis' line-up for tonight's game:

Jayden Struble took Matheson's place and Engstrom was employed on the first pair of defensemen alongside Noah Dobson.

Interestingly, the Habs haven't won in Carolina in nearly 10 years…

It didn't take too long for the Canadiens to open the scoring in this match. It took just three minutes for the captain to give his team the lead. Sammy Blais blocked a clearance, passed to Alexandre Texier who then fed Nick Suzuki in the slot.

And less than a minute later, Juraj Slafkovsky made another precise blind pass to Ivan Demidov, who completely mocked the defender before passing to Oliver Kapanen. All the latter had to do was thread it into an abandoned net.

In the game, Arber Xhekaj stood out with some hard-hitting checks, including this one. Now that's the Xhekaj we want to see.

The two quick goals weren't enough to keep the first-period lead, however. Nikolaj Ehlers, Sebastian Aho, and Andrei Svechnikov all scored unanswered to take the lead.

However, Jakub Dobes was not necessarily weak on these goals. Lane Hutson, on the other hand, really didn't have his best period, and even as a whole, it wasn't a great one for the young defender. However, he picked himself up in the second half of the game.

After 20 minutes of play, the score was 3-2 in favor of the Canes.

However, the Hurricanes weren't about to rest on their laurels, as young defenseman Alexander Nikishin put in a shot from the point.

A few minutes later, newcomer Sammy Blais scored his third goal of the season following a fine rebound pass from Brendan Gallagher, which was deflected by Hutson to Blais.

With just under three minutes left in the second period, Cole Caufield tied the game with a beautiful pass from Alexandre Texier, his second assist of the game.

Bill Guerin must be wondering whether he should announce Caufield for the U.S. Olympic team, given his 20 goals this season.

23 seconds later, Nikolaj Ehlers was feeling very generous on this January 1st by giving a very nice Christmas present slightly late to Josh Anderson.

What a bad time Ehlers had…

After 40 minutes of play, the Habs are ahead 5-4.

To start the third and final twenty minutes, Eric Engels noticed that Noah Dobson and Josh Anderson weren't on the Habs bench.

However, he added moments later that Dobson was back.

Unfortunately for the Habs, midway through the final frame, it was announced that Anderson would not be returning to the lineup… Another loss for the Habs. It's getting to be a lot.

Fortunately, according to Engels, Kaiden Guhle could return to action sooner than expected, after the Montreal club's away trip.

Nevertheless, the list of injured players is long… very long: Kaiden Guhle, Kirby Dach, Patrik Laine, Alex Newhook, Mike Matheson, and Jake Evans.

In the third period, even though he wasn't very busy in the third period, Jakub Dobes made some big saves to keep the lead. And moments later, Slafkovsky decided to take on the whole rink before beating the goalie from a very narrow angle.

The Slovakian looked like Paul Coffey on this sequence.

The Hurricanes pulled out all the stops with just under four minutes to go in the third period, and it paid off, as Ehlers cut the deficit to one. On the sequence, Aho picked up his fifth (!!!) point of the game. His second career five-point game.

Fortunately, with two minutes left in the game, Lane Hutson fired the puck from deep in his zone into an empty net to restore his team's two-goal lead.

With this goal, five Habs players collected two points in the game.

Final score: 7-5 in favor of the Habs

The Habs' next game is this Saturday in St. Louis against the Blues.


Extra time

– As I mentioned on Kapanen's goal, Slafkovsky threw another no-look pass (successfully), and Grant McCagg points out that he's managed one per game in his last five games (at least).

– Indeed, the absence of Matheson (and Guhle, of course) in this game clearly hurts, and the defense is much more porous.

– With his first-period goal, Nick Suzuki became the Habs player with the most points in the first 40 games of a season since Saku Koivu in 1996-97.

– Interestingly, Juraj Slafkovsky blocked no less than five shots in this game, as well as registering three checks (and two points).

– Once again, Phillip Danault was excellent in the face-off circle, with 62% efficiency.

– Brandon Bussi, the Hurricanes' goaltender, was playing very well this season, but still allowed six goals on 20 shots (the seventh goal being scored into an empty net).

– Lane Hutson, after a shaky start to the game, bounced back with some big minutes in Matheson's absence. Dobson and Hutson spent around 24 minutes each on the ice in this game.

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