Those are all significant, because they represent tangible evidence that the Canadiens core is entering the league\u2019s elite. But they are individual milestones. And this team is not about individuals.<\/p>\n
Caufield admitted the three previous games were stressful. He was thinking about that 50th goal more than he was thinking about the Canadiens opponent, largely because those three games came against teams not in the playoff picture.<\/p>\n
But Thursday against the Lightning was about far more than Caufield\u2019s milestone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re ahead of us and the team that we\u2019ve looked at for a long time to kind of want to be like,\u201d Caufield said. \u201cSo it definitely made me just play the game tonight and do it the right way. Obviously when the moment\u2019s high, you\u2019re just thinking about doing the right things out there. I think honestly that definitely helped, and a big two points for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suzuki was ecstatic that Caufield got his 50th goal, and that he was able to set it up, as he has so many of Caufield\u2019s goals over the years. But approaching his own milestone was of little importance to him, even though it\u2019s been 40 years since the Canadiens had a 100-point scorer and 36 years since they had a 50-goal scorer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it means a lot,\u201d Suzuki said. \u201cI think winning the division would be a lot sweeter for me. I\u2019m just trying to go out there and produce and help the team win. It\u2019s more fun setting up Cole for his 50th.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is emblematic of this Canadiens team, and that their captain feels this way says a lot.<\/p>\n
Because the milestone the Canadiens hit as a team Thursday night is that the Lightning are no longer necessarily something for them to aspire to be. Suzuki and Caufield were in the lineup when the Canadiens lost to the Lightning in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, a loss that triggered a rebuild in Montreal in the hopes they would one day reach the Lightning\u2019s level.<\/p>\n
And throughout that rebuild, with Suzuki, Caufield, Slafkovsk\u00fd and Lane Hutson as the centrepieces from the very start, the Lightning have set the standard to reach in the Atlantic Division.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like there\u2019s teams that have been the bar a little bit, and I feel like we got closer and closer to these teams,\u201d said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, a Lightning legend. \u201cWhere exactly are we compared to them? The standings might say something, but the reality is we\u2019ve closed the separation. Are we above, are we below? It doesn\u2019t matter. I\u2019m not worried about the standings. It\u2019s close. Being close doesn\u2019t guarantee anything, you\u2019ve just got to go play the games and you\u2019ve got to be dialed in when you play those teams. I feel like we did that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
More so than Caufield\u2019s 50th goal or Slafkovsk\u00fd\u2019s 30th or Suzuki\u2019s 70th assist or 98th point, the Canadiens\u2019 ability to elevate and play a nasty game and come out on top is what should give them hope that the playoff hockey that awaits them next week, whether that\u2019s against the Lightning or the Buffalo Sabres or the Boston Bruins if they manage to win the division, will not overwhelm them as it did a year ago.<\/p>\n
And no one personifies that more than Hutson.<\/p>\n
He was a target for the Washington Capitals in the playoffs last year because they identified him as critical to the Canadiens\u2019 success. And because he is undersized, he made for an easy target. Hutson was thrown off the first two games in Washington, but then adjusted and left a positive impact on the series for the Canadiens.<\/p>\n
Thursday morning, Hutson was asked about that experience and how it might help him when he\u2019s inevitably targeted again in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve kind of felt glimpses of it all year, there\u2019s some teams that play pretty hard,\u201d Hutson said. \u201cAfter last year, maybe one of the harder first-round matchups you could get with the physicality aspect, so learning from that and taking what I\u2019ve learned about where to be and how quickly the puck has to come off your stick, I feel more confident going into this playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few hours later, Hutson used that experience in the regular season. The Lightning targeted Hutson all night, particularly Corey Perry, because that is what he does. Hutson did not flinch and impacted the game both offensively and defensively, despite being kept off the scoresheet.<\/p>\n
After the game, his face was mangled, with a cut across the bridge of his nose and what looked like a rug burn on his chin. He looked like he had come out of a war. And he was smiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could feel it coming,\u201d Hutson said postgame. \u201cLike I said, there\u2019s been games this year like that, and I feel like I\u2019m getting more comfortable with it. It\u2019s a fun, intense game to be a part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you\u2019ve just got to take a couple of punches, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/USATSI_28696285-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd\u2019s landmark goal helped the Canadiens to a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning Thursday night. (Eric Bolte \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
This was a test for the Canadiens. The Lightning were highly motivated coming to the Bell Centre, having lost similarly significant games in Buffalo and Ottawa. They knew the Canadiens were a likely first-round opponent, and they wanted to send a message.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens, led by Josh Anderson, sent a message of their own instead. Anderson was a menace all night, targeting Lightning superstar Nikita Kucherov in a very similar way to how Perry targeted Hutson.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou love to be in those situations. It fuels you,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy who can hurt you in so many different ways. He\u2019s very smart, skilled, can score, so just being hard on him. Just letting him know it\u2019s not going to be an easy night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canadiens will be in those situations a lot in the coming days and weeks. A year ago, they were not a playoff-hardened team, and it showed. They\u2019re still not quite playoff-hardened the way the Lightning are, but it shows significantly less.<\/p>\n
And it comes down to how happy everyone was that Caufield got his 50th goal, how they felt it was an accomplishment for all of them. And, in turn, how happy Caufield was to see Slafkovsk\u00fd score his 30th goal, the game-winner. And in between, how everyone wearing a Canadiens uniform battled in the trenches to show how prepared they are for the nasty reality of playoff hockey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel it\u2019s a pack,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cThey\u2019re so together. They love each other. They\u2019ve got each other\u2019s back. They celebrate everyone. They\u2019re a selfless group. They\u2019re doing a lot of things that benefit the group, not just the individual. It\u2019s fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The Montreal Canadiens hit an important milestone Thursday night, and it had little to do with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,189,21,4,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-549540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-lightning","10":"tag-montreal-canadiens","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116380471583231180","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549540","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=549540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}