Game 4: Montreal Canadiens vs. Seattle Kraken
Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Kraken region: Kraken Hockey Network (KHN), KONG
Streaming: ESPN+, TSN+, RDS+
The buzzer sounds again, once. It’s time.
“Okay, let’s go,” Bowman says, and with a shout we break for the door.
It may be trite. It may be overstated. It may be cliché.
But it’s true.
There is something special about hockey in Montreal.
The Montreal Canadiens are unique in the North American sporting landscape. Founded to specifically capture the hearts of an underrepresented majority, the Club de hockey Canadien grew into an outlet for said people’s emotions — their joy, their passion, their frustration, and their outrage. As the people of Montreal changed over the decades, so did the Canadiens. The team bore witness to the divisions of the 70s and 80s, where the blood on the ice echoed that spilled off of it. It adapted to the growing cosmopolitan nature of the city in the 90s and 00s, wrestling with how to maintain its founding identity in a progressively more interconnected world. Today, the team encompasses the hopes and dreams of all Montrealers and Montréalais(e).
Il y a trois mots qui unissent tous les gens du Ville-Marie:
I go first, then Larocque, then Lapointe.
Lafleur, to the right of the door, taps my left pad, then my right, with his stick, jabbing me lightly on the right shoulder with his gloved right hand.
The Canadiens come home after serving as the honoured guests for three Original Six home-openers. In most other seasons this decade, four points in three road games would be cause for optimism, if not outright celebration. This is actually the first time that the Habs have won two of their first three away games since the pandemic 2020-21 season; before that, one has to go all the way back to 2016-17, Michel Therrien’s final season at the helm. But expectations are higher this season, and the Canadiens’ performance was … uneven.
On the whole, the team deserved better against the Toronto Maple Leafs, dropping a coin-flip game on a sequence where both defencemen lost their sticks. They showed off their transition game and offensive panache against the Detroit Red Wings, but did benefit from a few goal posts at one end and a few blunders by John Gibson at the other. The final game, against the Chicago Blackhawks, saw an astonishing nine power plays for Montreal in the first two periods. However, the Canadiens only converted twice, turning what probably should have been a runaway victory into a nail-biter that Kaiden Guhle snatched up with 15 seconds to go in regulation.
He does the same for Larocque and Lapointe, then squeezes into line, ahead of Robinson.
The thing is, Montreal has done relatively little poorly. Only two players on the roster have a negative goal differential at five-on-five (Jake Evans and Patrik Laine). Every player has a point except for Evans, Laine, and Josh Anderson. The first line is humming along at a 65%-plus clip when it comes to expected goals. New acquisition Zachary Bolduc leads the team with three goals, while captain Nick Suzuki has five points.
The consternation instead comes from things that they could be doing better. The team is having difficulties working some of their players into the regular rotation, whether it’s Arber Xhekaj (averaging 11:10 time-on-ice per game), Oliver Kapanen (12:52), or Ivan Demidov (13:15). The coaching staff has divided their top talents between the two power-play units, but the second unit is receiving far less opportunity than the first one. Both Demidov and Lane Hutson only have a single point to their name, which is both a mild concern and a mild testament to the Habs’ newfound offensive depth.
Tale of the Tape
| Canadiens | Statistics | Kraken |
|---|---|---|
| 2-1-0 | Record | 2-0-0 |
| 47.0% (22nd) | Expected-goal share | 50.9% (14th) |
| 3.33 (T-9th) | Goals per game | 2.50 (T-25th) |
| 2.67 (T-10th) | Goals against per game | 1.00 (1st) |
| 20.0% (T-11th) | PP% | 20.0% (T-11th) |
| 80.0% (T-16th) | PK% | 75.0% (T-23rd) |
| 0-1-1 | Head-to-Head Record (24-25) | 2-0-0 |
| Zachary Bolduc (3) | Most goals | Jared McCann (2) |
| Nick Suzuki (5) | Most assists | Jordan Eberle, two others (2) |
| Nick Suzuki (5) | Most points | Dunn/Beniers (3) |
After the oldest team in the NHL helped out with some centennial festivities, it will now face the youngest franchise in the league. The Seattle Kraken entered the NHL hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Vegas Golden Knights. When they made the post-season in only their second season and then proceeded to upset the then-defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in the first round, everything looked to be on the right track.
Since then, Seattle’s trajectory has crashed back to Earth, and the franchise is caught in no-man’s land. Yes, they have a collection of top prospects past and present such as Kaapo Kakko (out for six weeks), Matty Beniers, and Shane Wright, but with Ryker Evans also out for six weeks, the youngest blue-liner on their roster is 26-year-old seventh defenceman Cale Fleury. The biggest impact players in terms of ice time are Brandon Montour (31), Adam Larsson (33), Chandler Stephenson (31), and Jordan Eberle (35).
The Kraken arrive in Montreal undefeated, having beaten the Anaheim Ducks 3-1 and the Golden Knights 2-1 in overtime. Much of the credit belongs to goaltender Joey Daccord, who has made 61 saves on 63 shots and boasts the league’s second-best mark of 4.38 goals saved above expected. Offensively, Beniers (three points), Eberle, and Jared McCann (two goals) form Seattle’s most potent trio thus far, while Vince Dunn is the main blue-line threat. Defensively, Stephenson, Jaden Schwartz, and 2021 third-rounder Ryan Winterton comprise the Kraken’s shutdown forward trio. They’ve been successful thus far, having yet to surrender a goal at five-on-five, but they’ve also been playing with fire. Stephenson in particular has been on the ice for a whopping 46 shot attempts against compared to only 16 for.
One by one the tight-faced line continues, to Napier, second to last, and Lambert, last.
This upcoming four-game homestead, starting with the Kraken and then moving to the Nashville Predators, New York Rangers, and Buffalo Sabres, will go a long way toward establishing how far the Habs have come, and how far they still have to go. A good result might put Montreal near the top of the NHL standings, a bad result builds a shaky foundation for the Western Canada road trip that immediately follows.
Seattle comes into Montreal with the same number of points as the Canadiens, but their roster compositions, underlying metrics, and state of expectations all point to two different clubs on two different trajectories. The Kraken are an old team, lacking in bona fide star power, supplemented by a small, talented, but yet still unproven group of youth. They are hoping that a new head coach can instill enough structure into a roster built for his predecessor in order to recapture the success of three years prior.
The Canadiens, on the other hand, are a young team — the youngest in the league — supplemented by a small group of veterans largely occupying limited yet important roles. Their roster is built with their longstanding head coach’s ambitions in mind. As the youth goes, so do the Canadiens, and the team hopes that they continue to take the necessary steps to replicate last year’s results, and to go even further beyond.
Tonight, the Bell Centre welcomes the 2025-26 Montreal Canadiens, with that all-too-familiar refrain that has echoed through the decades:
As we come into view, the noise begins and builds.
“Accueillons,” the announcer shouts, “let’s welcome, nos Canadiens, our Canadiens!”
