{"id":541489,"date":"2026-04-05T04:37:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T04:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/541489\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T04:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T04:37:14","slug":"canadiens-extend-win-streak-return-home-with-chance-to-clinch-playoff-berth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/541489\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens extend win streak, return home with chance to clinch playoff berth"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEWARK, N.J. \u2014 They don\u2019t ask how, they ask how many, and the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> now have nearly enough.<\/p>\n

Their eighth win in a row \u2014 sealed on an Oliver Kapanen<\/a> breakaway deke in a shootout versus the New Jersey Devils<\/a> Saturday \u2014 got them to 100 points on the season. They\u2019re travelling home to what will undoubtedly be a hero\u2019s welcome at the Bell Centre, coming off a 5-0-0 road run that began in Nashville last Saturday and staring down an opportunity to lock up a playoff berth Sunday.<\/p>\n

All the Canadiens need is one more point.<\/p>\n

But after tying up the Buffalo Sabres for second in the Atlantic Division, they\u2019re gunning for the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are two points ahead with six games to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy stop now?\u201d asked Lane Hutson<\/a>, who made it 3-0 with his 12th goal and 74th point of the season with just over half the game remaining.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens may have allowed the Devils to score three goals over the next 27 minutes of play, but they persisted for a 4-3 win.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t happy about how it went. Just like they weren\u2019t thrilled with Thursday\u2019s 3-2 win over the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n

But sticking with it and not letting either game completely slip away was indicative of how the Canadiens have matured since their rebuild began in the back half of the 2021-22 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe probably lose those games the last few years,\u201d said Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki<\/a>, who spent those years searching for positives in losses but now has the luxury of nitpicking at wins.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old is also mature enough to consider the context \u2014 of the last couple of games of a pivotal road trip presenting traps against carefree teams playing for lottery odds rather than playoff spots, and of completing five games in eight nights before Sunday\u2019s rematch against the Devils in Montreal \u2014 without using it as an excuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, when you\u2019re on the road for 10 days, every day just blends in together,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cIt feels like Nashville was a long time ago, and I think just the way we were able to just find ways to win, even though we didn\u2019t really have our best games, it\u2019s a testament to all the guys in here to just stick with it. We didn\u2019t collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stayed on his feet, even if his legs were wobblier against the Devils than they had been in weeks.<\/p>\n

Hence, Suzuki notching his 95th point in a game that saw him lose 15 of 21 faceoffs, get caught on the ice for Timo Meier\u2019s goal, and miss for a 17th consecutive time in the shootout.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long road trip,\u201d Suzuki said, \u201cand sometimes the last one\u2019s a bit of a mental grind.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Canadiens fought through it to get to a place few thought they\u2019d arrive at this soon \u2014 already at 100 points, with 12 more available to them from here to the end of the regular season.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, we\u2019re proud of that,\u201d said Martin St. Louis. \u201cBut we always focus on the next game, the next action on the ice, whatever it is. It\u2019s fun to look at where we are in the standings, how we\u2019ve been playing recently, it\u2019s fun to see that. But we\u2019re going to stay on task and tell ourselves the truth the next day to keep moving forward and remaining focused on the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s been that recipe that\u2019s propelled Suzuki to the most prolific season of any Canadiens player in decades; that\u2019s put Cole Caufield<\/a> one goal away from becoming the first Canadiens player to hit 50 since Stephane Richer did it in 1991; that\u2019s made Juraj Slafkovsky one of the game\u2019s most dynamic power forwards; that\u2019s made Ivan Demidov<\/a> the Canadiens\u2019 fifth-ever 60-point rookie; that\u2019s turned Hutson into a point-per-game player; that\u2019s made two rookie goaltenders one of the best duos in the league.<\/p>\n

Jakub Dobes<\/a> stuck to his process to turn a topsy-turvy ride through the first half of the season into an incredibly smooth one down the stretch. He stopped 35 of 38 Devils shots after stopping 129 of 134 in the four consecutive wins he earned prior to Saturday.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Jacob Fowler<\/a>, who\u2019s progressed a ton since debuting with the Canadiens in December, will take over and go for his fifth win in his sixth start since being recalled from the AHL\u2019s Laval Rocket in the second week of March.<\/p>\n

This team has arrived ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty remarkable,\u201d said Suzuki. \u201cI think just the amount of young guys that we have, how they\u2019ve grown, they\u2019ve been able to win us games. The goaltending\u2019s been awesome. Our rookies have been really good. And guys that have been here just keep getting better with our system. I think our coaching staff\u2019s been better as we\u2019ve grown together, so it\u2019s pretty cool to be in this experience so fast. When we got into this rebuild, it felt like it might take a while, but it\u2019s pretty fun right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s hard, too, and that much more rewarding because it is.<\/p>\n

Sunday won\u2019t be easier, but the biggest reward of the season could be enjoyed by the end of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there\u2019s going to be a lot of energy in the building,\u201d said St. Louis. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to earn that every game. I think they see where we try to battle hard every game, with nothing guaranteed. I think they respect that. The foundation of our success, I think it\u2019s our work ethic and our collectiveness. And I feel they feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWARK, N.J. \u2014 They don\u2019t ask how, they ask how many, and the Montreal Canadiens now have nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,5,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-541489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-montrealcanadiens","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116350251859830474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}