Game 54: Montreal Canadiens vs. Colorado Avalanche
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Avalanche region: Altitude
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+
A couple of months into the season, it seemed clear that the best teams in the NHL resided in the Central Division: the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota Wild. As the calendar was set to flip to 2026, they ranked first, second, and third, respectively in the overall standings, with the Wild four points clear of the Carolina Hurricanes in fourth and a whopping 15 points up on the next-closest team in the division.
With the Winnipeg Jets not in their usual regular-season form and the St. Louis Blues nowhere close to building upon last year’s run to the playoffs, there has been little for the top three to play for during the third quarter of the season, and that is starting to show in their records. Minnesota has performed the best of three by winning six of the 13 games its played, Dallas has fallen off the most with a .462 points percentage since New Year’s Eve, and Colorado’s record in January is 5-5-2. With a loss in Ottawa last night in a game they managed just 18 shots, the Avalanche travel to Montreal for the second game of a back-to-back with just two wins in their last seven contests, dealt three of the seven regulation losses they’ve taken all season long during that two-week span.
Tale of the Tape
| Canadiens | Statistics | Avalanche |
|---|---|---|
| 29-17-7 | Record | 35-7-9 |
| 49.5% (18th) | Expected-goal share | 56.3% (1st) |
| 3.36 (6th) | Goals per game | 3.90 (1st) |
| 3.26 (24th) | Goals against per game | 2.39 (1st) |
| 23.2% (8th) | PP% | 15.9% (28th) |
| 76.9% (27th) | PK% | 84.4% (2nd) |
| 0-1-0 | Head-to-Head Record | 1-0-0 |
| Cole Caufield (30) | Most goals | Nathan MacKinnon (38) |
| Lane Hutson (44) | Most assists | Nathan MacKinnon (50) |
| Nick Suzuki (59) | Most points | Nathan MacKinnon (88) |
That doesn’t mean the Canadiens should expect a win, but they can at least take a bit of inspiration from the Senators recovering from an 8-2 loss in Colorado on January 8 to claim a 5-2 win on home ice; Montreal suffered a similar defeat in Denver, 7-2 on November 29. The Habs have at least one win versus Colorado in each of the last two seasons, and will try to keep that streak alive.
The good news is that Montreal doesn’t just need to hope for a drop in level from the Avalanche to play them closely. The Habs have been doing that for four games now, beating Minnesota to start that stretch, perhaps deserving better in the two games that followed versus Buffalo and Boston, and most recently completing the season sweep of the Vegas Golden Knights by outworking them for the first 40 minutes to claim a 2-1 lead and ultimately getting the win in overtime.
As the once-decimated Canadiens near a return to full health, the Avalanche are dealing with a couple of key injuries. Gabriel Landeskog is out of the lineup, but it seems to be just a minor ailment for him as he’s hoping to be recovered in time for the Olympics. Colorado is also missing another national-team player, Devon Toews, on the back end, which doesn’t just take one of the club’s most-used defencemen out of the lineup, but changes the way superstar Cale Makar plays the game as well as he’s slipped slightly under a point-per-game pace since. Toews is listed as day-to-day, but given the proximity to the Olympics and the fact that, despite their recent play, the Avalanche still have a nine-point buffer in the Presidents’ Trophy race for the league’s best record, he may not don an Avs jersey again until late February.
He’ll miss out on putting on the blue Québec Nordiques jersey to participate in what is sure to be the best-looking game of the season as the Habs will counter with their home reds. You can expect that playing in front of the Bell Centre crowd will inspire a better effort from the Avalanche than they’ve put forth recently. The Habs have been guilty of not starting games on time over the past week or so, and they’re not going to get away with that versus even a hobbled Colorado roster.
Jakub Dobeš has gotten the call to face Nathan MacKinnon’s squad as the goaltender starts consecutive games for the first time since playing three in a row from December 6 to 9. His last regulation loss was the final contest of those three matches in four days. Keeping that run going with a point tonight is about all you can ask for when Colorado lines up on the opposite side of the ice, but a win would be a huge confidence boost to set the Habs up well for the final three games before the break.
