Montreal Blows a Fourth Two-Goal Lead, and Caufield Says the Penalties Are on Them

Montreal led San Jose 3-1 in the third period on Tuesday and lost 4-3 in overtime, the fourth time in nine games the Canadiens have given away a two-goal lead. Cole Caufield said afterwards that the team shot itself in the foot with penalties it did not need to take, in The Canadian Press account carried by TSN. Martin St. Louis backed the message in a coach’s words and put off his goaltending decision until Thursday.

How did Montreal lose a game it controlled?

For two periods there was little wrong with it. Macklin Celebrini opened the scoring for San Jose, Nick Suzuki tied it, Juraj Slafkovsky put Montreal ahead, and Caufield made it 3-1 late in the second. Montreal controlled most of the five-on-five play, the CP account records.

The third period undid it in a specific order. Michael Misa cut the lead to 3-2. Then Arber Xhekaj dropped his gloves in a skirmish with Michael Kesselring, who kept his on. Both men took roughing penalties and Xhekaj took an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct. Tyler Toffoli scored on that power play to tie the game with 8:51 remaining. In overtime, with Montreal in possession, Jakub Dobes stepped to the edge of his crease and reached out an arm to interfere with Collin Graf. He was penalized, and Celebrini scored his second of the night on the power play to end it, per the NHL.com recap.

What exactly did Caufield say?

He did not use either teammate’s name in the quotes the wire carried, and he did not need to. “Shoot ourselves in the foot,” he said, in the CP report. There was no need for any of those penalties, the mistakes were the team’s own, and the play was not very mature. Of the Xhekaj penalty he added that he did not think anybody on the San Jose side wanted to fight him.

His Dobes answer was more careful and more pointed at once. Dobes is a competitor who was trying to settle a pick, Caufield said, and he understood it. But it was not needed at that point of the game, and you cannot give the officials a reason to raise an arm against a group that can make you pay on the power play.

The contrast in the room came from Slafkovsky, who scored in the game and refused the invitation entirely. He said he was not going to call anyone out, that they are all part of the team, and that he supports Dobes in everything he does. Two of Montreal’s young leaders looked at the same loss and described it in opposite ways. That split is the story as much as the quotes are, and it sits next to the very different noise around Caufield’s franchise-record 14th overtime goal against Buffalo four days earlier.

Why is this the fourth time, not a one-off?

Because the pattern is now the season’s defining one. The CP report counts four surrendered two-goal leads in nine games for a team that sits 4-3-2 with one regulation win, a victory over Toronto on opening night. Montreal leads the NHL at 5.30 penalties taken per 60 minutes. Alexandre Carrier, in the same report, said it is not just one night and that it has come back to bite them.

St. Louis said the same thing in a coach’s register: up two in the third, playing the way they were playing, the game should be over, and his team needs to understand what the score requires and what it does not. Very simple, he said. He also shrugged when asked about the Xhekaj penalty, which read less like disagreement with Caufield and more like a coach who has had this conversation before. The league’s other early-season discipline stories, from Ottawa’s captaincy and injury picture before the Florida game to Nikita Kucherov tying the Lightning points record, have cleaner shapes than this one.

What does it do to the goaltending question?

Dobes came into Tuesday under pressure that predates this game. He had allowed five or more goals in each of his previous three starts, and the 21-year-old Jacob Fowler, who beat Buffalo 4-3 in overtime on Saturday, is taking ground from him, Sportsnet’s account of the night records. Tuesday was a good Dobes game for long stretches, 26 saves and a crowd chanting his name in the first period, which is what makes the overtime penalty land so hard. He gave his critics the one play they will remember.

Dobes did not speak to reporters afterwards. St. Louis said he had not spoken with him either and was not ready to make proclamations about the position. He said he would sleep on it and reassess tomorrow. That tomorrow is Thursday, and Montreal plays in Chicago on Friday to open a four-game trip, a stretch that also tests a young roster the way Cole Knuble’s NHL debut for the Flyers tested Philadelphia’s. Celebrini, from the other room, supplied the footnote: he said he had never seen a goalie take an interference penalty, and that he was thankful it happened.

What happens next?

Thursday’s goaltending decision is the first answer, and Friday’s game in Chicago is the second. Caufield leads Montreal with six goals and is 25, old enough in that room to be a voice and young enough that his words carry a cost. Players do not talk this way about penalties in October unless the room has already talked about it privately. Whether St. Louis answers by changing his goaltender, his penalty kill usage or nothing at all, the standard has now been set in public by his top scorer, and the next blown lead will be measured against it.