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<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s always a tough first game back at home after a really long road trip,\u201d captain Nick Suzuki said. \u201cEveryone\u2019s excited, the fans were into it. I think we just didn\u2019t go out there and execute, and it could have been a better homecoming for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
The Canadiens, coming off a 4-3 shootout win over New Jersey on Saturday, registered just eight shots in the first two periods and finished 0-for-4 on the power play.<\/p>\n
That came hours after the Detroit Red Wings fell 5-4 to the Minnesota Wild in a matinee, helping the Canadiens become the first Canadian team to secure a playoff berth this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say exactly what it is, but we\u2019ve been playing a lot of hockey at a pretty good level. Back-to-back, we come back from a trip, you wake up from your nap and you clinch a spot,\u201d said coach Martin St. Louis, listing the possible factors. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have our fastball tonight, but it\u2019s not like we played badly. Our execution wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caufield remained one goal shy of becoming the first Canadien to reach the half-century mark since St\u00e9phane Richer in 1990 for the second straight game after scoring his 48th and 49th on Thursday against the New York Rangers.<\/p>\n
Fans crowded the glass during warm-ups with signs, including one spectator holding up the No. 50 in big gold birthday balloons.<\/p>\n
The Bell Centre erupted when Caufield appeared on the big screen, and again when he jumped over the boards for his first shift just over one minute into the game. Chants of \u201cCau-field! Cau-field!\u201d quickly followed.<\/p>\n
On the ice, meanwhile, his teammates pushed for an assist on the milestone. Perhaps a little too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel it,\u201d defenceman Kaiden Guhle said. \u201cYou see the signs in the crowd. Even (Saturday) in New Jersey, there was a lot. A little extra buzz, but I think we\u2019re just playing. I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s really trying to force it to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Louis, however, felt his players were \u201clooking for (Caufield) a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt affects a little bit of the continuity of some plays,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a lot of confidence that he\u2019ll score 50. We would have loved for it to happen (Sunday), for a lot of reasons. So that we could move on to other things, and offer that to the crowd. It would have been fun to give them that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the letdown, Montreal (45-22-10) sits third in the Atlantic Division with 100 points, firmly in the mix to secure home-ice advantage and two points back of the Tampa Bay Lightning for the division lead with one more game played. The Canadiens play their next three games at home, starting Tuesday against the fading Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to win the rest of the games,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cPossibly having a chance to finish first in the division, home-ice advantage is big.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got guys getting healthier and we got some big games coming up at home. Now is a big opportunity for us to go out there and play some of our best hockey down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Louis doesn\u2019t expect his group to change much in the final five games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still in a place where we could win our division, we can go get home-ice advantage,\u201d he said. \u201cTo lower the level and wait, and then to say, \u2018OK, the playoffs are starting, we have to bring it back up.\u2019 I think that\u2019s a trap, you have to be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s always a tough first game back at home after a really long road trip,\u201d captain Nick Suzuki…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543431,"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-543430","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\/116356515683121905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543430","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=543430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}