The Bell Centre is finally back on the schedule for the Montreal Canadiens, and Tuesday night’s home opener comes with more bite than usual.
Montreal has not lost a home opener since the 2021-22 season, a run that has quietly become part of the team’s early-season identity. The Canadiens will try to keep that streak rolling against the Carolina Hurricanes, the same club that knocked them out of the playoffs last spring. That alone gives this one a different feel.
The Canadiens have made a habit of delivering in their first game in front of their home crowd. Even through the ups and downs of the last few seasons, they have consistently looked sharp when the lights come on at the Bell Centre for opening night. There is always a jolt that comes with the player introductions, the crowd noise and the sense that a new season is starting for real in Montreal.
This year, the Canadiens come home after splitting their first two games. They opened with a win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, then fell in overtime against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Three points out of a possible four is a solid start, but Tuesday brings a different kind of challenge.
The opponent is what turns this from a standard home opener into something more charged. Carolina ended Montreal’s season in the Eastern Conference Final last spring, cutting short a playoff run that had already shown how far this young group had come. The Hurricanes were the better team in that series, Frederik Andersen was outstanding, and Carolina did a strong job keeping Montreal’s most dangerous forwards in check.
That history is still fresh for the Canadiens, and it should be fresh for the crowd too. Tuesday will not erase last spring, and a regular-season game in October cannot balance out a missed chance to reach the Stanley Cup Final. But it does give Montreal its first shot to answer back.
For Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov, that playoff series was part of the learning curve. They saw what Carolina looks like when it dictates the pace and how hard it can be to create offence against that kind of structure. That makes this meeting feel a little sharper than most games this early in the year.
Montreal is not being asked to treat it like a season-defining night. It is still October, and there are 84 games left on the schedule. But this is still a chance to send a message, especially with expectations around the Canadiens climbing after last season’s success.
They are no longer just a rebuilding team waiting on its young talent. They have shown they can hang with some of the East’s best and make a deep playoff push. Beating Carolina would fit right into that next step, particularly after Montreal picked up three of a possible four points to start the year.
If the Canadiens can get to five of six points while keeping the home-opener streak alive, that would be a strong way to open the Bell Centre portion of the season. And given the opponent and what happened last spring, it is hard to imagine a more emotionally loaded way for Montreal to start at home.
In Other News...
Canadiens Suddenly Have A New Lineup Concern Beyond Demidov
The Canadiens lineup picture has taken on a little more haze heading into a busy stretch against the Nashville Predators and Detroit Red Wings. Demidov is already out with an injury, and Oliver Kapanen has also been missing from several practices, leaving head coach Martin St-Louis with more uncertainty than he likely wanted at this point in the schedule.
Kapanens absence has added another layer of intrigue because the Canadiens have not offered much to explain it, and the timing matters with games coming up quickly. St-Louis now has to keep sorting out combinations and depth options while trying to cover for Demidovs absence, and the clubs next few days may say a lot about how flexible the roster really is. [Read more 🡒]
Canadiens May Have Found The Answer To A Big Top-Line Debate
Juraj Slafkovskys place in the Montreal Canadiens lineup has been one of the more interesting debates around the clubs recent stretch, and it took a twist when he was shifted onto the top line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. The move came with Ivan Demidov sidelined, forcing the Canadiens to adjust their forward combinations and giving Slafkovsky a chance to show how he fits beside the teams two most established finishers.
The appeal is obvious: Slafkovskys size, puck protection and improving play can help drive a line that already has skill to burn, while the alternative is sending him back down to a second unit where he might carry more of the puck and the playmaking load. Montreal now has a decision to make about whether the experiment is a short-term fix or something worth keeping in place once the roster is back closer to full strength. [Read more 🡒]
Canadiens Suddenly Face A Goalie Decision They Didn't Expect
A routine practice took an unwelcome turn for the Canadiens when Sam Montembeault went down with a non-contact right leg injury, and the team is expected to update his status later. For a club that had not exactly planned on revisiting its crease chart this way, the timing matters, especially with the goaltending picture still being shaped by what Jakub Dobe does with his opportunities.
Jacob Fowler is the name that naturally enters the conversation if Montreal needs help from Laval, where the young netminder has already made a strong impression in limited looks at both the NHL and AHL levels. If Montembeault is sidelined, the Canadiens could be looking at more than a short-term patch, with a possible extended evaluation in the crease depending on how Dobe holds up in the meantime. [Read more 🡒]