After beating the Calgary Flames 2-1 in overtime on Wednesday night, the Montreal Canadiens took their fans on another rollercoaster ride on Thursday night against the Edmonton Oilers. With Kirby Dach back in the lineup, Martin St-Louis wisely decided not to break up his other three lines and inserted the Albertan on the fourth line alongside Joe Veleno and Samuel Bolduc.

Samuel Montembeault was back in the net and needed a confidence-building performance after Jakub Dobes had handled the net for the last two games, and unfortunately for him, that’s not what he got.

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Montembeault Can’t Catch A Break

After the Canadiens took an early lead through Alex Newhook, the Oilers equalized through him as well. Edmonton took a shot from far out, but it was redirected twice, with the last one being off Newhook’s skate. The goaltender’s reaction was automatic, and you could see he didn’t like the goal.

In the second frame, the masked man was beaten by another shot that was launched from the blue line but expertly tipped by Adam Henrique, which gave the host a 2-1 lead. The first two Edmonton goals were not on Montembeault, but part of a goaltender’s job is to inspire confidence from his teammates, and on both goals, his reaction showed that the goals got to him.

Being the last line of defense is a tough job, and a goaltender must be mentally strong. Right now, the Canadiens' number one’s confidence is shaken, and he’s not able to put goals behind him and move on. Saying that is not disrespecting the goalie; it’s stating a fact.

The third Edmonton goal wasn’t on him either; you can clearly see on that play that Dach was drawn to the puck like a moth to a flame. As a result, his man, Andrew Mangiapane, showed up in front of the Habs’ goalie all on his lonesome and only had to redirect Darnell Nurse’s feed past Montembeault.

After that, you could see a nervous goaltender who was fighting the puck at times. There was a high shot he dropped, and he was lucky the puck took a friendly bounce and went wide. Noah Dobson, at one point, tried to give him the puck to freeze, but he pushed it back instead. He wasn’t ready to freeze it because he didn’t want to get the puck.

Finally, on the game-winning goal, he was much too deep in his net and therefore did not cover enough of it; he was barely taking up any space. If St-Louis plays Dobes on Saturday night in Vancouver, it won’t be because he lost confidence in his goaltender; it will be because the youngster is playing better, and accountability has to be at every position, not just on the blueline or up front. If you play better, you get the net. It’s as simple as that.

The Canadiens Were Fuming After The Game

While an organization is not supposed to criticize the referees, the Canadiens did not hold back after Thursday night’s game. They felt the game wasn’t called fairly, and the fact that they let their emotions overtake them was costly in the end.

One call on Juraj Slafkovsky stood out particularly. The big Slovak applied a check by the boards, and as he did, he grabbed hold of his opponent to ensure he wasn’t projected headfirst. Still, he was called for boarding, and that got to the Canadiens. Then Mike Matheson was called for tripping —another call the Habs felt was soft —and Edmonton scored on it, cutting the Montreal lead in half, which made Josh Anderson see red. The forward chucked the puck at the other end of the ice and started hitting the ice repeatedly with his stick while looking at the referee, which earned him an unsportsmanlike penalty.

Nugent-Hopkins cut through the Habs’ defense like a hot knife in butter on the ensuing power play, received a perfect pass from Conor McDavid, and scored to tie the game with less than eight minutes remaining in the third frame.

After the game, the Habs were very vocal about how events unfolded. Cole Caufield, who had scored two crucial goals in the second period to give the Canadiens a one-goal lead after 40 minutes, said:

Obviously, I’m still trying to figure that out. I think the refs kind of took over the game there, and kudos to them for winning it.

- Caufield on officiating

As for Brendan Gallagher, he was asked by Sportsnet’s Eric Engels if he got an explanation about Anderson’s penalty following the Draisaitl goal, and the alternate captain replied:

I’m going to be honest with you, it started with Slaf’s penalty. Talked to him after that one; they admitted it wasn’t a penalty, made a mistake. It’s an emotional game; temperatures are hot. Understand that, control the game. Understand you made a mistake —we’re shorthanded again. Give a guy a second; no need to call that. I thought our guys played a really good game. We were checking their top players, we were doing what we needed to do, we responded really well. And yeah, could we have handled our emotions better? Of course. We’ll talk about that. But situations in the game, you know, obviously they’ve got some high-end talent, they don’t need the help.

- Gallagher on officiating 

That was as honest an answer you could get from a player. While the alternate captain did criticize the referees, he acknowledged that the Canadiens were at fault for not managing their emotions properly.

While the referees did make the calls that sent the Oilers on the power play, the Habs didn’t play particularly well on the penalty kill, and that’s on them. As for St-Louis, he said that after the game, the coaching staff watches videos to improve, and that he hoped the league would go through the same process. A comment clearly aimed at the officiating.

Bouncing Back

Lost in the officiating criticism was the fact that the Canadiens really bounced back after the Oilers took a two-goal lead in the second period, even though the Canadiens had been playing well. The Anderson, Jake Evans, and Gallagher line took matters into its own hands when Edmonton led 3-1. Gallagher’s forechecking on Nurse forced him to cough up the puck, which Evans gathered, passed to Gallagher, who had gone to the front of the net, and he passed it on to Anderson, who beat Calvin Pickard.

Just over a minute later, Cole Caufield scored the first of his two goals, walking in with speed and showcasing his fantastic stickhandling to beat the Oilers’ netminder. Then, 49 seconds later, the sniper scored another with a well-placed hard shot to give the Canadiens a 4-3 lead with just over a minute left in the second period.

The Habs showed a lot of character to get back in the lead instead of feeling sorry for themselves after falling in a two-goal hole. While they couldn’t ultimately win the game, those three goals in less than two minutes showed just how efficient this team can be offensively, and it should be a real confidence builder.

As for Caufield, that performance showed just how clutch he can be when it really matters, and he did it in front of Stan Bowman, the Oilers GM, who is part of the Team USA staff for the Milano Cortina Olympics, and he should have taken notes. Those two goals gave Caufield seven on the season, making him one of the five players leading the league in goals with the same total. Of the lot, he’s one of two Americans, along with Shane Pinto.

The Canadiens will enjoy a day off on Friday after playing an emotionally draining back-to-back and will be back on the ice on Saturday to take on the Vancouver Canucks.

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