The Montreal Canadiens that we’ve come to know and love this season did not show up on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre. With the Los Angeles Kings in town, they bumbled their way to a 5-1 loss, sending a number of fans off to beat the traffic with a fair amount of time left in the third period.
From the net out, this was easily the worst game they’ve played this year, and one they need to get past quickly.
Monty what on earth are you trying to do here? pic.twitter.com/9Tsnvma8kG
— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) November 12, 2025
One could be tempted to lay this loss at the feet of Samuel Montembeault. The above goal was unforgivable, he put up an .840 save percentage on the night, and yet, you can’t lay this loss at his feet alone. High-danger scoring chances were 12-6 for the Kings at even strength. They didn’t generate nearly enough at the offensive end, and would have needed their goaltender to drag them to overtime to have any chance at winning. Montembeault has done that for them on more than a few occasions during the rebuild, but this team is supposed to be past that kind of sheer dependance on goaltending.
There is no doubt that Jakub Dobes should get the next start, but they shouldn’t expect him to steal two points if they can’t provide a better effort in front of him.
They came out for the second period with all the jump of a garbage truck with all of its tires shot out. They missed the net. A lot. When the Kings came out for the third period more than willing to sit back with four players waiting at their defensive blue line for any break-in, the Habs didn’t seem to know how to attack them. It was, without a doubt, their worst performance of the season to date.
The question now will be if they can make this their last such performance. Getting your worst game of the year out of the way in game 16 would be fantastic, but they’ll need to find a way to forget that performance very quickly, because they have the Dallas Stars coming to town tomorrow night. If this performance bleeds into the next game at all, they’ll be in for a rather depressing night against one of the powerhouse teams from the Western Conference.
They are still an incredibly young team, so we can forgive performances like this in a vacuum. Now, we’ll get to find out how they can bounce back from such performances.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We will be back on Thursday night to discuss the next game of the home stand, with the Dallas Stars visiting the Bell Centre.
