November 14, 2025
The Montreal Canadiens greeted the Dallas Stars on Thursday night. The welcome may have been a little too warm. The result was a 7-0 loss for the Habs.
Here are a few things worth noting.
The Habs got off to a strong start but couldn’t capitalize.
The opening minutes looked good. They applied pressure and made plays and drew a penalty. But they couldn’t capitalize against a weak penalty kill. On the other hand, the Stars have a strong power play and almost immediately capitalized.
Montreal had no answer from there. The opening tally was the game winner. Rough.
Has the bottom completely fallen out of the goaltending?
Like many, I thought Marty should have rode Dobes while he was hot and let Monty figure things out away from the starter’s net. The coach saw it differently and, who knows? The outcome might have been the same.
Both guys seem to be out of confidence and hard-pressed to stop a beach ball right now.
That Newhook injury did not look good.
What a shame! Having a breakout season and getting hit with the injury bug. Let’s hope it looked worse than it was and Newhook recovers quickly.
If there is any upside, the injury forces a call-up or two. Veleno was already questionable and the Canadiens weren’t carrying an extra. This is also an opportunity to juggle the lines and get some different looks. A brief look at Bolduc-Dach-Demidov may be extended.
The first adversity test is upon us.
We knew it was coming. When the NHL released the schedule it was obvious that the Canadiens had a fairly friendly start to the season. They couldn’t have the start they had last year and they needed to rack up points before the schedule got tough. And that they did with a 9-3-0 start.
Since they beat Ottawa on November 1st, they’ve faced Philadelphia, New Jersey, Utah, Los Angeles and Dallas, and earned only four out of a ten possible points. It does not get better.
November continues with Boston, Columbus, Washington, Toronto, Utah, Vegas and Colorado. No easy points in there. December is not better with four sets of back-to-backs and the toughest teams in the league on the docket.
The Habs are firmly in adverse territory and will be tested mightily in the days ahead. This is where we find out who they are. I think we all know they’re not the top team in the league, but who will emerge?
We’ll start to find out against the Bruins on Saturday.
Hab At Her 