MONTREAL — The timeline Martin St. Louis decided to refer to was no accident.
The same team was on the other side of the ice. The same puck-management decisions ultimately made the difference. The same feelings of disappointment consumed him.
And so, after his Montreal Canadiens lost 8-4 at home to the Washington Capitals on Thursday night, a Capitals team that had played the previous night in Washington while the Canadiens rested, St. Louis got flashbacks.
“I’m disappointed because it’s as if we went back in time a bit tonight. That’s disappointing,” he said. “Our good was good, but we shot ourselves in the foot. It’s as if we went back 13, 14 months.”
On Halloween of last year, of course, the Canadiens lost 6-3 in Washington, the infamous “threw up all over ourselves” game that was followed the next day by the lone bag skate of the St. Louis era.
So much growth has happened since then. The team has changed since that night. But this game, against this team, triggered this coach in a way he had not felt since that night.
“Tonight there were moments that made me feel like that,” St. Louis said. “And even as tough (as it was) to watch, some of these things, I still felt like we could win this game in the third. I still felt it. And I wasn’t really wrong. But it’s hard to come back in this league. That’s a veteran team. But there’s just some moments out there tonight that I’m disappointed about.”
One of those moments likely came just before the goal that sealed the Canadiens’ fate. Lane Hutson, who just moments earlier had nearly manufactured a goal out of pixie dust, attempted to do the same off an offensive-zone faceoff win with a little under five minutes remaining in regulation time and the Canadiens down 5-4. Hutson worked the puck over to the left side of the ice and threw it out into the space he had created on the right side. Except none of his teammates were in that space, and three Capitals players were suddenly breaking towards the Canadiens’ net with only Nick Suzuki back defending.
It was 6-4 Capitals moments later.
9️⃣0️⃣6️⃣ pic.twitter.com/aghvjtoa2u
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) November 21, 2025
That situation, one St. Louis has worked diligently to eradicate since that Halloween game in Washington, obviously stings in the immediate aftermath of a game he thought his team had a chance to win, only to lose on a play he felt encapsulated everything it had done wrong to that point.
That, of course, is a micro viewpoint, and right after a game, a micro viewpoint is a very normal viewpoint to have. And for a head coach, the micro viewpoint is easier to lean into, in this specific case, because it is something that is within his control.
“You coach; that’s what you do,” St. Louis said. “You coach, and that’s what I intend to do.”
But the macro viewpoint is far more important, and that is the fact that the Canadiens had already scored four goals at that point and were still chasing the game, clouding the decision-making of one of their most dynamic offensive players at a critical moment.
The macro viewpoint would be that they should not have had to chase at that moment.
The refreshing change in what the Canadiens are trying to build is the lack of reliance on goaltending.
Every team needs solid goaltending to hope to win, but for decades, this franchise has overly relied on its goaltending to steal games, to reach the playoffs, to win playoff series, to have any semblance of success.
Almost all the success this organization has had over 40 years, from Patrick Roy to José Théodore to Carey Price, has leaned extremely heavily on goaltending.
As a result, the market and the fan base are preconditioned to look to goaltending to explain away whatever ails the Canadiens. Each of those goalies, as great as they were, went through it.
This version of the Canadiens is built not to require that. The goaltending bar for this team is not theft; it is not Hart Trophy-level larceny. The bar is adequacy.
No self-respecting hockey player or coach is going to blame all of his team’s problems on one player or one position, but the Canadiens still need to hit that bar of adequate goaltending to take the step they hope to take this season, and they are not hitting it.
Sam Montembeault left this game after allowing his third goal on 10 shots. Out of 45 NHL goalies to start at least seven games this season, Montembeault’s save percentage of .852 is 44th.
He has been, to be kind, inadequate.
No one knows this more than Montembeault. He is as self-aware a player as there is. He can speak openly of the faults in his game, and he will push back when he believes you are unjustly criticizing his game.
St. Louis, however, loves saying how he knows nothing about goaltending. Neither do his players. They can’t understand what is ailing their goalies; they can only process the way they play in front of them. So that justifies the overall response of the players and the coach after a contest in which inadequate goaltending put them in a position to lose a game they could have won.
“Can our goalies play better? Yes, they would be the first to tell you that, for sure. You want me to say we need more saves? Everyone wants more saves,” St. Louis said. “For sure, the goalies could play better, but I’m not going to blame everything on the goalies. There are other things happening on the ice where we can help them much better than we are.”
The fact Jakub Dobeš didn’t fare much better than Montembeault — he allowed four goals on 25 shots and looked just as positionally squirrelly — is less important to the macro view.
Rookie goalies who lead their teams to the playoffs carrying a huge workload are excessively rare. The Canadiens and goaltending coach Éric Raymond need to figure out a way to get Montembeault going; otherwise, this season could very well become a disaster.
Two things can be true at once, and that should be the main takeaway from the divergence between the micro view of this one game taken by the coach and his players and the macro view of what is happening to the Canadiens right now.
In 12 games since losing 6-5 in Edmonton on Oct. 23, the Canadiens have a team save percentage of .850, worst in the league over that span, relatively far back of the second-worst team, the Oilers, at .855.
The Canadiens can fix all the things that made St. Louis feel the way he did on Halloween last year in Washington, they can grow as a team and improve their collective game and improve their defensive pace — all things that were talking points after Thursday’s game — and none of it will matter if this one, basic thing does not improve.
St. Louis thought he had a chance to win this game because his team is talented and, for a change, that talent is not overly concentrated in the goal crease.
But the talent there still needs to pull its weight, no more and no less, or none of the other talent will matter.