First period
- The first shot comes 16 seconds in.
- The first goal comes at 53 seconds on a three-way passing play between Nick Suzuki, Lane Hutson, and Cole Caufield who one-timed it in.
Less than a minute in, Suzuki to Hutson to Caufield to the back of the net. #gohabsgo
— Matt Drake (@drakemt.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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- It’s always funny when Caufield scores versus the Flyers.
- Florian Xhekaj can’t play the puck out of his feet and it results in Philadelphia bringing the puck back in the zone, but then he also stops a cycle behind the net and get play turned back the other way.
- On his next shift, Florian accepts the puck from Tyler Thorpe at the right faceoff dot and beats Samuel Ersson for the 2-0 goal. A pretty good start from a player I think can make the opening-night roster. And he’s playing centre tonight to boot.
Tyler Thorpe finds Florian Xhekaj, 2-0 #Habs
— Matt Drake (@drakemt.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 8:28 PM
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- The top line is treating this game like their points matter, and no one’s going to complain about that.
- Joshua Roy puts in a nice shift with some offensive work and a defensive recovery, he just couldn’t get the puck to his teammates for quality chances.
- Joe Veleno has also been the strongest player on what is the third line in this game with Sammy Blais and Vinzenz Rohrer. Some good zone entries.
- A quality period from everyone on the ice that period.
Second period
- Less of a good start to the second period as Juraj Slafkovský takes Christian Dvorak’s skate to the face. Hopefully it isn’t a serious cut.
- Florian just played on defence so Hutson could work deep in the zone. He then ended the shift with a wraparound pass from behind the net, though he probably could have bore down a bit to wrap the puck in himself.
- A strong effort from Vinzenz Rohrer to fight to get the puck over the blue line on a penalty kill and down to Philadelphia’s zone.
- Now just over a minute of three-on-five for Montreal to kill after getting caught with too many players.
- The penalties are killed without a great deal of drama.
- Florian is now fighting with Nicolas Deslauriers. It didn’t go well for The Younger. I also don’t think that’s the way he’s going to impress Martin St-Louis, and he’s also going to miss a couple of shifts of this audition.
- Jakub Dobeš exits after a perfect 30 minutes, even if he only faced nine shots.
- Kaapo Kähkönen sees the first shot he faces enter the net, though the blame on that one falls on David Reinbacher for failing to deal with Anthony Richard in a one-on-one situation.
- Slafkovský returns to the bench after his appointment with the tailor.
- He gets out on the ice, and sets up his captain for a goal. Suzuki had to force his blade through two attempted pokechecks to get that one through.
Slafkovsky, still bleeding from the face sets up Nick Suzuki for a third Habs goal
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 9:29 PM
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- Arber draws a penalty on a trip, and then immediately goes after Rodrigo Abols to not only even up the calls, but take an extra minor for roughing. St-Louis wanted him to pick his spots for physicality. That wasn’t the time.
- The Flyers score on their power play that should have been one for Montreal. We’ll see what the coach’s response is.
Third period
- Arber is out early in the third, so at least he didn’t get himself benched.
- The top line continues to toy with the Flyers on their shifts. Dominant at about 70% of their level.
- Outside of the top line, I think it’s fair to say that Florian has been the best forward in this game. Good moments for Rohrer as well battling through pressure to keep the puck moving up the ice.
- Arber is jumping up into the attack a lot this period.
- A long forechecking shift by the Xhekaj line ends in Hunter McDonald dropping his gloves in frustration and taking down Luke Tuch. Will there be an instigator here? There is an extra cross-checking minor for McDonald, so it’s power play time.
- Zachary Bolduc gets a shift on the top unit, and nearly sets up a goal with a nice flip-pass.
- Kähkönen keeps the team in the lead with a save on a short-handed breakaway.
- Pierre Houde just called #79 Tobie Paquette-Bisson “Markov” and that’s the best compliment Tobie will ever receive.
- The one thing Hutson doesn’t do well is pivot, and it just forced him into a hooking call with two minutes to play. There will be one last penalty kill to see this game out.
- Arber tries to curl a puck down the ice for an empty-netter but it ends up wide. He gets another shot and fires it down into the middle of the net.
- Goals for both brothers in this one.
- The hockey every night to start the week was fun, but now we need to wait 45.5 hours for the next one versus the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday.
