So much for first impressions.

The Detroit Red Wings’ 4-0 victory Saturday over the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre couldn’t have been more different than the previous meeting between the teams.

The first look at the 2025-26 Red Wings was ugly. Goaltender John Gibson was pulled late in the second period in his Detroit debut and the Red Wings lost 5-1 to the Canadiens at Little Caesars Arena in their season-opener.

The second time around, Gibson posted his third shutout since the start of December and the Red Wings moved into sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Division.

“To kind of look at the game on opening night into the game tonight just shows how far we’ve come,” Dylan Larkin told media in Montreal after the game. “They’re a heck of a hockey team and they’re dangerous and we got a lot of puck luck tonight where they hit bars and they missed nets and we had some good blocks but swept the crease well.”

Coach Todd McLellan said in his postgame address: “Game 1 set us up for this. We knew we had to do certain things to give ourselves a chance to win. And I was really happy with the buy in. All the players, whether they viewed themselves as offensive players, physical checkers, all followed a game plan and followed it pretty well.”

The Red Wings are 14-4-3 in their past 21.

Gibson is 12-2-0 in his past 14 starts, with a 2.01 goals-against average and .932 save percentage. That’s quite the turnaround from October and November, when he was 5-7-1 with a 3.59 GAA and .865 save percentage.

“His record speaks for it, and his demeanor speaks for it,” Larkin said. “He’s calm. Even when things weren’t going well, he felt like it was going to turn and good on him. A veteran guy that doesn’t get too high, doesn’t get too low and stuck with it and believed in himself. And our whole team is getting a confidence boost from him when he’s in the net.”

It’s a good week when you can win on the road against division rivals Ottawa and Montreal – a win over hapless Vancouver was sandwiched in between.

“It’s still early, but two pretty good big tests for our hockey team going into Ottawa and then coming into this building, and we passed,” Larkin said.

The Red Wings host the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network) on a night where Sergei Fedorov’s No. 91 will be raised to the rafters in a pregame ceremony that starts at 5:30.