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Oh baby, he did it again. The Montreal Canadiens have a flair for the dramatic as it's Zachary Bolduc finishing it off in a game where Montreal found their hottest stretch of offense of the season. No, not necessarily ending up in a bunch of goals, but we did get some beautiful ones from Caulfield, from Anderson, from Lane Hudson. Montreal puts up nearly 40 shots in a game where their special teams shine and it's exactly what we've wanted to see in terms of growth for this team. Yes, I know those two goals quickly, they hurt a lot. they were not Fowler's fault at all tips in front what can you do but Montreal laid on the offense on a tired Buffalo squad I have to say that but still Montreal didn't fare very well going up against tired teams in second nights of back-to-backs last year Montreal hey they wore themselves out and they'll have to head into next game now a little bit tired but getting this win was so unbelievable leave some W's down below if you are excited and there's one thing I also want to ask you guys and that is to subscribe if you haven't already we gained a lot of subscribers since just yesterday but we're on the road to 30k we'd love to hit it by the new year you see the timer down below december 31st we got 79 days to get 1500 subscribers it's completely free let's talk about this game feel free to pause take a look at the box score powered by digest sports.com keep an eye out for that coming up very soon anyway lane hudson of course leading the way with two points, but Cole Caulfield picking up two, Uriah Slavkovsky with two. This is sort of by ice time. You could sort of by points. Anyway, look, this game in general, I thought was awesome for a couple of reasons. The main one, though, is that Montreal just really seemed to find their offense. It was just Buffalo had their moments, that's for sure. But it really felt like Montreal deserved this one. And you haven't seen the deserved to win a meter, bro. I mean, look, it's not the craziest one I've seen, I've seen 95, 96%, but 80% to 20%, yeah, Montreal dominated these shots, I think, what did it end, 38 to 18, something like that, Ukolenko, to give him credit, was absolutely phenomenal tonight, but guess what, you can't do it all, and when it comes down to the shootout, apparently we have a new specialist in Zachary Bolduc, let's play the highlight once again, full speed, my goodness, what a move there, this little filthy deke, like a little Kucherov-esque might I say it wasn't quite the fake but you know the little quick chip back between the legs was unreal and I think we are all Martin Saint-Louis after we saw that one I took this screenshot right away and I've seen the video already circulating but let's get back to the point right my point was simply there was a couple things that I knew would need to get better for Montreal in this game if they were to continue to I don't know if they were to continue their upward trajectory and the big one for me was special teams and oh boy did Montreal ever pass the special teams test tonight it's time to talk about the power play and the penalty kill of this game it was at least 38 to 17 with the shots by the way so Buffalo had five power play opportunities Montreal had only three and to be fair it was really just two because there was well it is three because it was a five on three at one point and that's where we scored the goal By the way, Lane Hudson, the lane train, our guy, the first Habs defenseman to score on a 5-on-3 since Shea Weber in 2021. Isn't that interesting? But look at this. Buffalo 0-5 on the power play. Montreal a perfect 5-for-5 on the PK and a nice 33% on the power play. And that includes, of course, a shortened power play after the 5-on-3 ended. The special teams for the Habs was the absolute key to Montreal. again like i said elevating their level of play this year i know they're not like coming into this game we were what 31st on the power play and like bottom 10 in penalty kill percentage Buffalo did get some chances early on their power plays but Montreal managed to really start stifling their chances as time went on suffocating them in the neutral zone not allowing them to generate any opportunities and if Montreal can continue even if you can be a top 10 to 15 penalty kill you don't need to be top five but you can get your power play a lot better you're going to be in great shape and Montreal struggled on their special teams to start this year but it's starting to come around now this game was a good example of it and I do have to shout out Lane Hutson in this one 27 more minutes and there was a point in overtime where Lane Hutson played a minute and a half straight like he had a big offensive possession turned over the puck had to skate all the way back full speed to stop a rush chance then get the puck behind the net he's leaning on the boards like this like oh please please please someone he waves to the bench please someone take me off he hands it up to slap and then we end up getting another nice break opportunity but still Hutson did absolute I'm playing Lane Train again this dude is a machine a machine every night playing 27 minutes he's now up to six points in six games on the season because coming into this game uh coming into this game he had yeah four points in five games with the one goal one assist he's now up to six points in six games um but i also gotta shout out Cole Caufield who had an amazing game today and actually Caufield assisted by Suzuki and Slavkovsky, I mean what better time to play this, become best friends, yep, how fitting that that animation is also against Buffalo from the playoffs last year, it wasn't quite that it was assisted mainly by Slav but Caulfield now up to three goals um and you know three goals four points which is good in six games, we wanted to get him going not on a Saturday night, five shots though, playing almost 20 minutes, Caulfield has been amazing, uh absolutely love what I've seen from him, Josh Anderson too power horse, we have to give him credit, I mean I know there's been a lot of talk recently about his upcoming contract ending and uh the potential extension that would come with that, I'm all for it I know that uh you know a guy his age with his style doesn't tend to age gracefully, so I'm not saying like a five or six year deal, um but hey if anyone's gonna buck the trend it's gonna be him and this dude has not, like, has not let off a little bit I feel like I'm seeing the same Josh Anderson now as I was seeing three years ago, and he's actually looking like, am I crazy for saying that he's looking unbelievable this year? Like, really, really good? I mean, we just take a look at the lines, too. Like, I mean, his line has been generating some good chances. Like, Prater, Newhook, Anderson actually led the Habs in expected goals percentage in this game. What's weird is that they generated a ton of high danger chances, but got pretty badly outshot while they were on the ice, which is a bit strange but yeah, it doesn't really matter if Buffalo's putting the shots on Fowler if they're not high danger chances like we were well out chancing Buffalo with that line on the ice Buffalo was just getting a few more shots that's what Corsi is, that's how many shots Buffalo even attempted towards the net blocked or not, doesn't matter if you attempt a shot towards the net, you add them all up, one team versus the other the percentage that your team did it, that's what Corsi percentage is, put in a very simple way, um you also notice that Texas A&O Bulldoze they controlled a ton of the shots but not the expected goals while the top line was pretty good all around uh beck evans doc shout out to owen beck for making his season debut he was fine um you know he didn't really do much uh but he was okay he felt like he belonged you know he had a team low 6:59 time on ice i feel like i don't want to say it um i did not notice kirby doc tonight at all uh not even a little bit just had to make that comment but there is one other guy i do want to focus on and that is our boy slapzilla who hey he's starting to get things going because you know he early this year he was a little all over the place he's still firing some passes that are i don't know questionable at times might i say and coming into this game in five games he just had the one goal one point but picking up the two assists tonight now up to three points in six games the 40 point pace i know that's a weird way to phrase it but hey you know we're back on track a little bit so three points in six games but I did think he was very good tonight and again I think that the 5v5 lines kind of showed that that top line was good he assisted that coffee goal it was beautiful now the big question though is the defense because there are some things that we need to discuss here Noah Dobson took a puck off the jaw and the announcers were like uh-oh oh no and then he just came back for the third period no mask no nothing just straight up i'm fine so thank goodness for that because did you guys notice that like Noah Dobson when i asked about Matheson was kind of like speaking like Matheson was going to be out a while not that he didn't say that but it just felt like they were talking as if Matheson was definitely not day-to-day i i don't know is it is it is it the same thing as Kapanen who they swear like Eric Engstrom tweet it wasn't yesterday like perhaps swear Kapanen is still day-to-day they promised like, hey, I know it's weird, but bro, it's been weeks, like, what are we, what are we doing, you know, like, I, so I don't know what's going on with Kapanen, and now Matheson, and there are some weird rumors of him limping around a lower body injury, I don't know if that's true, but regardless, he did not play tonight, lower body injury, so we're back to a six defenseman rotation, I guess, not so much a rotation, we got these three pairings, Hudson played a bit with Engstrom, but mostly with Dobson, funny that Hudson-Dobson was actually the worst analytical deep pairing tonight, despite Hudson playing well, a lot of that was on the power play Guli, Carrier and Jack Engstrom. Engstrom had a rough game. it's going to be one for him to forget a couple goals off of him. Like, he wasn't really clearing people out in front of the net. Fowler, I think he owes Fowler, you know, a watch or a beer or something. it's Fowler, yeah, no, I was gonna say, is Fowler old enough to drink in the States? He is. Anyway, but yeah, it was not the best game from Engstrom. But I thought Jacky played well. Arbor Jacky was good on that penalty kill. And solid 5v5, as you can see. but Gouli Carrier to me is a pairing that I do want to see a bit more I thought they worked very well together and I think they're going to continue to play well together but all in all hey it doesn't matter because you know what Zachary Bolduc is the shootout hero we'll play the video once again um Texier scores as well and Caulfield scores so so beautiful stuff from there but I'm just happy to see Montreal getting on a bit of a winning streak starting to climb those standings look one two and one to start the season was not what anyone wanted three two and one a lot more palatable getting these wins even though they are a bit dramatic Montreal is still winning the games that it feels like they deserve to win that one against Detroit this graph was probably more 50 50 but it felt like they deserved that especially after what Fowler did this game definitely deserve with the way they outplayed Buffalo Buffalo got three different tip goals nothing beats Fowler clean ever but we get Jakub Dobesz tomorrow versus Washington which is not going to be an easy game We've got Buffalo coming up again this weekend. It's going to be a tough stretch for Montreal, but we're all ready for it. That will do it for this episode, though. Thank you for tuning in every single day. And don't you forget, we're aiming to get to 30,000 subscribers by the end of the year. And even since we've started, it's not a full 100, but it's gone from 28,400 up to 28,500 when you round it. So, hey, we appreciate every single one of you tuning in, subscribing, or watching every single day. I've been your host, Josh Goss, and I will catch you all for the next one.