MONTREAL — Samuel Montembeault had every reason to feel dejected coming back to the Montreal Canadiens†dressing room directly after a goal initially called back for interference stood for the Ottawa Senators and tied the game 2-2.
Claude Giroux entered Montembeaultâ€s crease of his own volition, had a golden opportunity to exit after making contact with Montembeault twice, but he stayed there long enough to hinder Montembeault, who got part of his leg on Michael Amadioâ€s redirection but couldnâ€t get all of it on the ricochet off Canadiens defenceman Mike Matheson.
The officials deemed Montembeault had enough time to reset on the play, so he just had to swallow it with 11 seconds remaining in the second period — not even 10 minutes after a horrible turn of fortune gave Drake Batherson a goal to get the Senators on the board.
“Another game with horrible bounces,†the goaltender said 10 minutes after Alex Newhook won Montreal the game with the goal that made it 4-3 in overtime.
Montembeault was shaking his head, understandably flustered by the turn of events that threatened to steal away his first win in over two weeks.
But he didnâ€t show any of that frustration during that second intermission.
“I just had to come back here, have good body language, show the guys that weâ€re ok here, and weâ€ve just got to keep going in the third,†Montembeault said, highlighting how he did what everyone on the Canadiens has been doing since the start of this season.
They are a group of players who play for each other, a group of players who put team first, and you could see that in this game—and you could certainly see it when this game ended, with half the players swarming Newhook while the other half stormed Montembeault.
“Iâ€m so happy for him,†said Jayden Struble, who also provided a great example of how unified the Canadiens are when he avenged a vicious pre-season slash on Ivan Demidov by fighting the player who delivered it.
Struble knocked Nick Cousins to the ice with a thundering right hand to the chin. The punch knocked Cousins out of the game in the second minute of the third period.
In the second-to-last minute of the first period, six-foot-one, 205-pound middleweight Joe Veleno challenged six-foot-five, 225-pound heavyweight Tyler Kleven to immediately avenge a heavy hit on teammate Alex Carrier.
“I donâ€t think Joeyâ€s known for that,†said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who then called Velenoâ€s and Strubleâ€s decisions “selfless actions that benefit the group, the culture.â€
That culture has led the Canadiens to 9-3-0.
That culture has produced three rabbit-out-of-the-hat wins at the Bell Centre so far.
It was magical, but not coincidental that the Canadiens tied all those games in the dying minutes before pulling them out with the last shot. Those are the types of things united teams do.
Talent and depth count for a lot, too, and the Canadiens have also relied on those key ingredients.
At the top end of their lineup, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield have carried the load. The former extended his NHL-leading point streak to 11 games by making the breakaway pass the latter capitalized on to score his NHL-leading 10th goal of the season to put the Canadiens up 1-0. And their linemate, Juraj Slafkovsky, scored a power-play goal for the third consecutive game to make it 2-0 in the 10th minute of play.
But Saturdayâ€s game was one of the rare ones that saw Suzuki, Caufield and Slafkovsky outplayed at five-on-five—shot attempts were 15-10 in favour of the Senators with them on the ice—and that forced another line to step up.
Newhook, Demidov and Oliver Kapanen did that, producing the shift that pushed momentum back in their teamâ€s favour, and the goal that enabled Montembeault to feel as though his cursed season might be turning around.
It had gone horribly before that.
Even in this game, in which Montembeault started on top of it, the bounces conspired against him.
The goaltender came into it having allowed 19 goals in his first five starts. His save percentage was a hideous .842, and it got uglier after two pucks found their way past him on Ottawaâ€s first 12 shots of this sixth start.
But Montembeault parked all that.
He said all his teammates had picked him up over the nine days between this start and his last one — a 6-5 loss to the Oilers in Edmonton. He said that Jakub Dobes, who had unseated him as the starter, was among his biggest supporters.
“We have a great relationship, and we both want whatâ€s best for each other,†Montembeault added.
“We have a really close team in here,†he concluded.
Montembeault did his part between periods to keep it together, and he was relieved the team lifted him up, even after Tim Stutzle brought him down with a two-on-one goal that shrunk him in his net and put the Senators up 3-2 with 7:33 to go in the third period.
“We just kept going and got a big win,†Montembeault said.
The Canadiens did it together, like they have since this season started.
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