Tuesday night saw the first matchup between the Montreal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers this season, and it couldn’t have gone any worse for the home side in the opening minutes. Digging themselves a deep three-goal hole inside of the first 10 minutes, they had to fight their way back into the game during the second period, despite playing some of their roughest-looking hockey at even strength.
Thanks to the Habs’ young skill players, and some timely power play goals, they were able to escape that game with a single point in the standings.
Ivan Demidov with an absolute LASER, short side top cheddar, gives the #Habs a 4-3 lead pic.twitter.com/HcBOu3PIth
— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) November 5, 2025
Unfortunately, we can also lament that they didn’t keep pushing after the above marker gave them a one-goal lead. Two points were there for the taking, and it does sting that they weren’t able to get both of them. Still, they have to be happy that they obviously weren’t the best version of themselves, and managed to get something for the standings anyways. This wasn’t the kind of performance they’ll want to be replicating on a regular basis.
But they are one of the youngest teams in the league, so they won’t be their absolute best every night, and the good news is that they have the kind of skill that can paper over that happening from time to time.
Ivan Demidov’s fingerprints were all over that comeback. So too were those of Kirby Dach, whose line with Zachary Bolduc and Brendan Gallagher delivered the best results at five-on-five for the team. Lane Hutson was creating some magic for them, as he often does. There were some great things to take away from that contest, even if it was arguably their worst overall performance at five-on-five.
They might want to consider moving Demidov on to Dach’s line, at least temporarily. The old adage of not fixing things that ain’t broke rings true, but this team still does need to figure out how to maximize secondary scoring when the Nick Suzuki line isn’t on the ice, or isn’t firing on all cylinders. Demidov’s line struggled a bit at five-on-five, so it is worth wondering if they might want to move him and see if his even-strength production can be optimized.
But I digress. The point here is that there were good things to take from this game; the power play, the fact this team is never out of the fight, and the fact that their young skill players will drag them to said fight. Still, the overall five-on-five performance left a lot to be desired, so Martin St-Louis’s task will be to figure out how to harness the good things he saw, while also getting the team back to their five-on-five game that has gotten them to where they are so far this season.
The games won’t be getting any easier either, as up next will be a Devils team that look like the real deal.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back on Thursday night when the Habs will pay a visit to the New Jersey Devils.
