Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Panthers region: SCRIPPS
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+

There are five games left for the Montreal Canadiens to play in the regular season, and the next three will be contested at the Bell Centre. Before ending the campaign versus Metropolitan Division opponents, the Habs will face two final division rivals before the playoffs begin. Before a clash with implications for the top seed in the group, they will take on the Florida Panthers, a team that went into the season dreaming about a third consecutive Stanley Cup, and now on the way to finishing last in the Eastern Conference.

Injuries spoiled any chance the Panthers had of another championship. Tonight’s lineup features only a handful of their regulars with several injured throughout the year and then a group of veterans shut down for the season a few days ago to get them a head start on their recovery. What was already a long list today added Matthew Tkachuk, who is out day-to-day. The leading scorers among the active players are Sam Bennett with 58 points on the year and Carter Verhaeghe with 54; Montreal will dress five players who have hit at least 60 so far.

Recovery might be part of the reasoning behind all the absences, but there is probably also some tanking going on. The Panthers have a top-10 protected draft pick in play, and, currently sixth from the bottom, they are likely to hold on to that pick, The farther they fall, the better the prospect they can select. An anomalous year from a team that should be expected to contend for the Stanley Cup again next season is an unexpected opportunity for the Panthers to add a potential future star to the organization, so losing is probably in the best long-term interest, and that’s a situation that would suit the Canadiens just fine.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Injured: Alexandre Carrier, Kirby Dach, Alexandre Texier
Scratched: Adam Engström, Patrik Laine, Samuel Montembeault

Florida Panthers projected lineup

Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Panthers region: SCRIPPS
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+

Streaks can be funny things in the NHL. On Saturday, the Montreal Canadiens beat the New Jersey Devils at Prudential Center in Newark for an eighth win in a row. On Sunday, playing the rematch at the Bell Centre, Montreal scored zero goals for an 11th consecutive loss to the Devils on home ice, scoring a total of 18 goals during that span; they scored 31 during the winning streak that the Devils just brought to an end.

The previous two seasons, few teams could touch the Florida Panthers as they went on to win back-to-back Stanley Cups. One of the teams that had no issues versus what was regarded as the model franchise of the NHL was Montreal, sweeping the four-game season series in 2024-25. Adding two more wins this season to go with one at the end of the 2023-24 campaign, the Habs have now won the last seven times they’ve played the Panthers.

The final game between the teams will be played tonight with Montreal looking for another perfect season against their divisional foe. It wouldn’t be quite as impressive this time around considering that five other teams have already accomplished that feat this season, but it would just highlight how the balance of power has been changing in the Atlantic, and started even before this poor season from the two-time defending champions.

Tale of the Tape

Without the difficult loss to New Jersey on Sunday, maybe this would have been the game in which the Canadiens took their foot off the gas. Instead, they now have a reason to play well in a match that otherwise has no impact on their post-season standing. The offence is too good to get held to no goals when the energy and desire are there, and the players will want to make up for the disappointing loss on a night that should have been a celebration of both the winning streak they claimed largely on the road and locking down a playoff spot earlier on Sunday.

They didn’t test Jacob Markstrom and his .884 save percentage much in the last game, and just two high-danger chances at five-on-five all night long after 10 of them 24 hours earlier is probably the best indication that they just didn’t have the legs to play their usual offensive game. After two needed nights of sleep at home, it’s expected to be the .878 efficiency of Sergei Bobrovsky they tackle this evening. Bobrovsky has been in net for three of the seven consecutive losses his team has versus Montreal, and he allowed five goals in his last one on January 8 in Montreal.

Florida has already started looking ahead to next year. All of Uvis Balinskis, Niko Mikkola, Aaron Ekblad, Evan Rodriguez, Anton Lundell, Brad Marchand, and team leader in all of goals, assists and points, Sam Reinhart, have been shut down to give them a long off-season after two short ones the past two summers. They join Jonah Gadjovich who played 10 games this season and Aleksander Barkov who played zero after a pre-season injury in getting a head start on their preparations for 2026-27.

The Canadiens still have a great deal to play for in the final five games. With a win by the Buffalo Sabres over the Tampa Bay Lightning last night, the division lead remains just two points ahead as those two teams sit tied at 102. The Lightning will be in action at the same time tonight, playing a 13th game in 22 days when they visit the Ottawa Senators. If the Canadiens can get the offence back in gear and take care of the Panthers, the possibility could be there for Montreal to battle for the first seed on Thursday.

• Mats Naslund knows the pressure on Cole Caufield to score 50. [La Presse | Radio-Canada]
• Is this Nick Suzuki’s year to win the Selke? [La Presse | TVA Sports]
• Montreal’s first step back to the playoffs was to remember how to have fun playing hockey. [Montreal Gazette]
• The Habs have come a long way from last year. [The Athletic]
• The Victoire want to keep up their momentum, despite still missing key players. [La Presse]
• Goalie mask power rankings. [The Athletic]

Around the League and Elsewhere

• Islanders fire Patrick Roy and replace him with Peter DeBoer. [Sportsnet | TSN | NHL]
• The Isles couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to snag DeBoer. [NHL
• The Devils are moving on from Tom Fitzgerald. [TSN | Sportsnet | NHL]
• The Oilers are staying positive, despite key injuries. [Sportsnet]
• Leon Draisaitl may not be back until the first round is already underway. [NHL]
• The Penguins and Sidney Crosby still have it. [Sportsnet]
• Scott Oake announces his upcoming retirement. [Radio-Canada]
• Selling out Madison Square Garden is a sign of how far the PWHL has come, and also something they can build on. [The Athletic]

• While teams pluck coaches loaded with experience off the carousel, the longest tenures in the NHL belong to first-time head coaches, with Martin St-Louis included in that group. [La Presse]
• Mats Naslund thinks it’s good that a Canadiens player is on the verge of having a 100-point season, even if he wants to stay the last player to achieve one. [NHL.com]
• When Ivan Demidov scored a power-play goal on Saturday night, he was the fifth player to hit 60 points on the season, the first time Montreal has had that since 1992-93. [TVA Sports]
• Ticket prices rocketed up ahead of Cole Caufield’s return to the Bell Centre as he looks for a 50th goal. [TVA Sports]
• Nick Suzuki doesn’t know why he’s unable to score in shootouts. [TVA Sports]

Around the league and elsewhere

• Patrick Roy was fired by the New York Islanders, replaced as head coach by Pete DeBoer. [NHL.com]
• Porter Martone’s first NHL goal was the overtime winner versus the Boston Bruins to move the Philadelphia Flyers into the third seed in the Metropolitan Division. [NHL.com]
• Evgeni Malkin hit 1,400 career points in Saturday’s blowout of the Florida Panthers. [NHL.com]
• Zach Hyman could miss the rest of the regular season. [NHL.com]
• The new attendance record for women’s hockey in the United States was set in a sellout of 18,006 when the New York Sirens hosted the Seattle Torrent at Madison Square Garden. [NHL.com]

• The crowd chants “Cau-field!” as Cole steps on the ice for his first shift. When this crowd last saw him, he had 44 goals.
• The Devils are checking the Canadiens’ sticks very tightly to start this game, not allowing anyone space to shoot the puck. It’s needed strategy with Jacob Markstrom in net. Montreal will need to work a little harder to test the netminder tonight.
• Kaiden Guhle gets his stick in Jack Hughes’s feet as the forward loses the puck on his zone entry, and now the Devils will enjoy some extra space on a power play.
• Montreal is leaving no passing lanes open through the middle, so the best the Devils can do is boost their shot total with shots into Fowler’s mid-section. Some of these teams in the Metro must have Corsi bonuses.
• Joe Veleno gets the most dangerous chance by stripping the puck and going in alone on Markstrom.
• Just as Guhle’s penalty expires, Jack Hughes drives around Montreal’s coverage and sends a low shot through Fowler’s five-hole. It goes off the post, but Timo Meier is at the top of the crease to pound the puck in.
• The next shot goes off Fowler’s crossbar. Suddenly he’s not tracking the puck like he was to begin the game.
• Mike Matheson is trying to go right at Jack Hughes in this game, but isn’t sticking with him after his initial hits and letting him continue to make plays in the offensive zone. Hughes is the best player on the ice in this first period.
• Phillip Danault gets set up by Lane Hutson for one of the first open shots of the period for Montreal, and sends the puck off the crossbar.
• One last chance misses the target, and the Habs will need a comeback in the final 40 minutes to extend their winning streak.

First intermission

• The Carolina Hurricanes lose to the Ottawa Senators and stay at 104 points. A win tonight would move Montreal two points back of the current conference leader.

Second period

• About five minutes into the period, and the ice quality is halting as many attempted transitions as the Devils’ defending. The Canadiens played on a better surface when travelling through the Southern United States.
• Mike Matheson gets grabbed in the neutral zone, and Montreal heads to the power play.
• Another short-handed two-on-one. The Devils are attacking the puck when it gets high in the zone on the PK.
• Zero shots on the power play as they just pass the puck around the perimeter. Hutson ends the sequence with a high-sticking call in his own zone to make the situation even worse.
• Montreal gets a short-handed two-on-one with Matheson and Danault. Matheson’s shot is just fought off by Markstrom.
• New Jersey is just working harder than Montreal in this game to keep the puck moving toward the attacking end.
• Cody Glass skates right around Matheson and sends the puck through Fowler’s five-hole once again to put his team out to a 2-0 lead with less than two minutes to play in the second.
• With 40 minutes played, Montreal has eight shots on net. A crowd that watched the team rattle off wins on the road and gave everyone a loud cheer at the beginning of the game is starting to boo the effort. Two high-danger chances after two periods.

Third period

• The fans have had a change of heart during the intermission and try to boost their team to begin the third.
• Zachary Bolduc lands a big hit on Luke Hughes that gets the crowd going a little more, and Hughes jumps into the glass on the contact to make it look even harder than it was. Hughes retaliates after Bolduc clears the puck out of the zone with a cross-check to his kidneys that breaks his stick. A melee ensues involving all 10 players. That might be the spark Montreal needed.
• Montreal gets a power play. Time for, at the very least, some shots.
• Okay, shot attempts. The fire some pucks, but miss the net.
• Another short-handed two-on-one will bring the latest power play to a close. It looks like the winning streak is ending tonight.
• Caufield tosses a puck on net from the blue line. Montreal has its first shot of the period.
• The second line is able to create about three chances to raise faith in a comeback a little bit. Markstrom plays a potential icing play poorly and has the puck go off the post and stick at the side of the crease. Josh Anderson is tripped by Dougie Hamilton as he races in to collect it, and Montreal goes back on the power play.
• Suzuki gets a shot five seconds in. Caufield stabs at the puck for another. The second unit gets none. Another power play goes by the wayside.
• The Devils are getting a little sloppy in their coverage now. Maybe they’re running out of steam at the end of this back-to-back.
• Caufield shoots so hard his feet fly out from under him on two one-time attempts. He just misses the net both times, and Markstrom should be thankful because the puck would have punched a 14-hole right through him.
• Anderson and Arber Xhekaj combine to catch Jack Hughes with a big, clean hit just outside Montreal’s blue line. Brenden Dillon comes over to defend his franchise player. Anderson accepts the fight, which earns his team a power play on an instigator call.
• They haven’t learned the lesson about passing the puck near the blue line.
• Zero shots once again, spoiling the momentum they’d been building at five-on-five.
• Fowler is pulled with over three-and-a-half minutes to play. Montreal will finish this game down three goals.
• Caufield flubs another one-time attempt. He’s really pressing now.
• The winning streak ends at eight, and the crowd will head home without the chance to celebrate their team.
• Montreal is back in action on Tuesday, hosting the Florida Panthers in the season-series finale.

EOTP 3 Stars

3) He’s going to have to earn it, it seems

2) You can’t win them all

1) I’m sure we’ll see better versus the Panthers

Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Devils region: MSGSN
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+

The Montreal Canadiens sent Jacob Fowler back to Montreal before yesterday’s game in New Jersey so he could sleep in his own bed before playing the Devils in today’s rematch. Fowler’s contributions to the current eight-game winning streak have been three wins including the one versus the New York Islanders that began it, and a .914 save percentage. At a time in the season when a lot of teams around the league are struggling to push themselves over the finish line, the Canadiens are experiencing their greatest success, and stabilization of the goaltending position is the biggest reason for that current form.

Alternatively, goaltending is one of the issues that cost the Devils a return to the playoffs. Jacob Markstrom was supposed to be the solution to a decades-long search for a goaltender following Martin Brodeur’s tenure, but in 41 starts this season he’s posted an .883 save percentage, not much better than the .872 mark that cost Samuel Montembeault a spot in Montreal’s lineup. The Devils have just 22 wins from his games, unable to outproduce the 3.12 goals he allows as a nightly average.

Last night’s shootout win was the closest the Canadiens came to having their winning streak ended. The Devils won’t be a playoff team, but they proved that they’re still dangerous enough to pose a challenge even to a top team like Montreal. They have some dangerous forwards who can score, and will be looking to make up for last night’s loss. If the Habs are as serious about winning the Eastern Conference as Dobeš was in last night’s post-game comments, they will need to be better defensively after seeing a 3-0 lead slip away 24 hours ago.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Injured: Alexandre Carrier, Kirby Dach, Alexandre Texier
Scratched: Adam Engström, Patrik Laine, Samuel Montembeault

New Jersey Devils projected lineup

With the loss, the Red Wings can now achieve a maximum of 98 points, two fewer than the 100 the Canadiens improved to last night in New Jersey. They were the only team currently outside the playoff picture that had a mathematical possibility to pass Montreal, because the Philadelphia Flyers, who also have the chance to hit 100 points, would lose out to Montreal on the first tiebreaker of regulation wins.

The final step of the process being taken by the Red Wings is appreciated, but the Canadiens did the majority of the work during an eight-game winning streak, seven of those coming in regulation, to make the actual clinching event a formality. From being in a tight wild-card race just two weeks ago, they’re now comfortably in a top three seed in the Atlantic Division, holding a six-point edge over the Boston Bruins, and sitting just two back of the Tampa Bay Lightning for top spot in the group.

Montreal is also four points back of the Carolina Hurricanes who occupy the top spot in the Eastern Conference, and Jakub Dobeš shared after the shootout win in New Jersey that catching the Hurricanes is the team’s goal for the end of the season. The Canadiens swept the season series versus Carolina with three regulation wins, which set up the current situation where catching them is possible. With no more head-to-head matches, all the Canadiens can do is win the majority of the remaining six games and hope Carolina falters along the way.

However, there is a battle with the current leader of the Atlantic coming up, as Montreal will host Tampa Bay on Thursday. Winning that game makes taking the division more likely, if they can focus on taking care of business in a couple of games before then, the first being a rematch with the Devils this evening.

Oliver Kapanen put home a clutch shootout goal to do just that, and put the Habs on the cusp of officially clinching the playoffs in the process.

Oliver Kapanen goes five hole to make it eight straight wins, and a 100-point season for the #Habs pic.twitter.com/xmbm7aNebJ

— Matt Drake (@DrakeMT) April 5, 2026

This team isn’t just chasing the playoffs at this point, as that 100-point mark puts them level with the Buffalo Sabres, and just two points behind Tampa Bay for first place in the Atlantic Division. It’s not just about punching that ticket now, it’s about trying to earn home-ice advantage. They were ahead of schedule in making the playoffs last year, expected pre-season to once again be a wild card team, but have proven themselves to be much more of a threat in the most competitive division in hockey. They’re chasing that top spot, not just any spot.

But we also know that some history is being chased simultaneously. Every single person in attendance knew that Cole Caufield came in with 49 goals on the season. Habs fans packed the building in New Jersey hoping to be there for something that hasn’t happened in the lifetime of the majority of the players out there; a 50-goal Habs scorer. That seemed to be the preoccupation once the team got out to their three-goal lead.

Zachary Bolduc tried a hail mary on the power play to give Caufield a look, and it directly resulted in a shorthanded goal against.

Les Devils réduisent l'écart en 2e période grâce à un but de Jack Hughes en désavantage numérique 😳 pic.twitter.com/63A5Sx0yvK

— TVA Sports (@TVASports) April 5, 2026

At the end of the video, you can clearly see Caufield addressing Bolduc, seeming to ask “what are you doing?” Whether he was referring to the ill-advised stretch pass, or Bolduc’s effort getting back against the two-on-one is unknown, but he obviously wasn’t too impressed. Caufield wants that 50-goal milestone, but if his two assists during that game in situations where he may have been able to shoot were any indication, he’s not willing to compromise his team’s chances of winning to get there.

They have never had to force the issue when it comes to him scoring, and they shouldn’t start now. He has come in clutch for this team on so many occasions, there is no need to go searching for opportunities for him, he’ll find them when the time is right. They pulled this one out anyways, but it feels like the milestone may have distracted them enough to take their eyes off the prize a little in New Jersey.

They have four straight games at the Bell Centre. If they just play their game, Caufield will make some history, and they’ll keep fighting as a team to do something else that few expected them to be capable of.

Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back tonight, when the Habs will host the Devils with a chance to officially book their ticket to the playoffs.

Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Devils region: MSGSN
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+

It wasn’t the way the Montreal Canadiens wanted to do it after getting out to a 3-0 lead last night in New Jersey, but they recovered from allowing three consecutive goals to win the game in a shootout, running their record to a perfect 5-0-0 on the road trip. It was just Montreal’s third shootout win in eight tries, but that extra point was a big one, vaulting them over the Buffalo Sabres to, at least temporarily, hold second place in the Atlantic Division.

Today the Canadiens have returned home to do it all over again, joined by the Devils to complete the home-and-home set that concludes the season series. Each team has win from games that have gone past 60 minutes, so today’s match will decide the winner of the three-game set.

That’s about all the Devils have to play for, while the Habs have something else in mind: clinching a playoff spot, and then aiming even higher. Their win last night set up a situation of needing just one point, a 101st of the season, to get the “X” inscribed by their name to denote a second consecutive post-season appearance. It’s a bit of an anomaly that they sit above a team in the standings that has already clinched, but it comes down to the number of regulation wins, something Montreal doesn’t have the edge in versus many teams, largely due to games just like last night’s when leads were lost before the final horn sounded.

Montreal had issues last year when they needed one final result to punch their ticket, needing just one win in their last four games, and only claiming it on the final day. Surely it won’t take as long for either them to claim one point or one of the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings to drop one, but ideally they take care of business immediately and focus on getting some players a bit of rest before the post-season begins in about two weeks’ time.

Tale of the Tape

A similar scenario to last season’s attempt to secure a playoff berth played out last night with Cole Caufield one goal away from 50. Montreal got away from the usual supported offensive play trying to force the puck to the man chasing history, and ended up chasing the play instead after turnovers, the worst of which came on a power play that turned the chance to go up 4-1 into a 3-2 score.

You can understand after last night’s showing why Martin St-Louis was trying to downplay the quest for a milestone earlier this week, envisioning that exact occurrence as the focus shifted from the team to one player. Caufield has scored many of his goals when other players are occupying the attention of defenders, but both teams were focused on #13 last night, and it almost cost the Habs an important point.

Scoring in 35 of the 75 games he’s played this year, Caufield is just about as likely to score in a game as not, so just playing the percentage should see him hit his milestone without needing to put extra effort into forcing it. He hasn’t gone a game since the Olympics without putting two pucks on net, and even last night when the Devils tried to shut him down he put five on Jake Allen.

With that said, it would be nicer to see him hit 50 goals on home ice anyway, and that will no doubt come to pass during the four-game homestand Montreal begins tonight. The ovation will be loud and long when he scores it, but even that won’t compare to the noise at the Bell Centre when the playoffs begin. That should be the goal everyone is striving for, putting in the proper effort to lock up their place.

• Jakub Dobeš says 100 points are nice, but the team is trying to win the conference. [RDS]
• How the Canadiens can clinch a playoff spot today. [Journal de Montreal]
• Jack Hughes is happy to see Cole Caufield on the verge of hitting 50 goals. [NHL.com]
• Noah Dobson and Alexandre Carrier get to know each other better in a chat. [Canadiens.com]
• The Laval Rocket put an end to their four-game losing streak with a shootout win over the Calgary Wranglers on Saturday afternoon. [La Presse]
• Alexander Zharovsky earns the nod as the Habs prospect with the most impressive 2025-26 season. [The Athletic]

Around the league and elsewhere

• The Buffalo Sabres are happy that they will finally end a long playoff drought, but they know they need to refind their game before the post-season begins. [NHL.com]
• The Florida Panthers got eliminated by allowing six goals in the second period to the Pittsburgh Penguins. [NHL.com]
• Sidney Crosby passed Steve Yzerman to move into seventh on the all-time points list. [Sportsnet]
• Panthers assistant GM Sunny Mehta is on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ radar to replace Brad Treliving. [Sportsnet]
• In-person interviews were held this week as the Nashville Predators look to fill their general manager position. [Sportsnet]
• Taber, Alberta is the 2026 Hockeyville winner. [NHL.com]