Nick Suzuki dragged the Canadiens out of a hole Saturday night, but not all the way out.
Montreal dropped a wild 6-5 overtime decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins after staring down a 5-1 deficit, then ripping off a furious comeback that nearly stole the game. Suzuki was at the center of it all, scoring four points and steering the Canadiens back from the brink after a rough start to the season.
That matters because Montreal had already opened with an uneven 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on opening night, a game in which Suzuki and the team’s top players never found the scoresheet and the bottom six had to do the heavy lifting. Saturday looked like it might be heading toward a worse kind of statement - the kind that sends a team into its home opener next Tuesday with more questions than answers.
Instead, the Canadiens showed some fight.
They erased a four-goal gap and forced overtime by scoring twice in a 24-second burst, beginning with Chris Kreider’s first goal with the team at 18:52. With Jakub Dobes pulled and desperation taking over, Suzuki set up Kreider from behind the net into the slot for the primary assist, then immediately followed with a cross-crease feed to Ivan Demidov for the tying goal.
The comeback came up short, but Montreal at least left the building with evidence that it can still climb back into games.
That was not the case for most of the night. Cole Caufield opened the scoring early and the Canadiens looked in control before the Penguins turned the game around.
Mike Matheson took an ill-advised interference penalty on Sidney Crosby, and that led to an Evgeni Malkin power-play goal. Then, to start the second period, Declan Carlile beat Dobes from long range.
Dobes was an easy target by the end, having allowed six goals, but the Canadiens were a mess across the board once Pittsburgh took over. Goal No. 5 came on a power play after Montreal was called for too many men.
Still, the Canadiens kept clawing. Suzuki scored late in the second period to make it 5-3, and Caufield added another early in the third.
Pittsburgh appeared to slam the door when Egor Chinakhov scored, but Martin St. Louis challenged the play and won on an uncalled offside, giving Montreal one more shot.
Suzuki made the most of it.
On his first goal of the season, he went end to end, tried to get the puck to Caufield, saw Ben Kindel get a stick in the lane, then split the defense and lifted a backhand over Arturs Silovs. It was the kind of goal that changes the temperature in a rink, even if the scoreboard still said Montreal was buried.
The Canadiens had already been one of the NHL’s best comeback teams in 2025-26, finishing tied for the league lead with 26 such wins. This one didn’t end the way they wanted, but it did reinforce something else: they can still recover when the game goes sideways. And on this night, Suzuki was the reason they got that far.
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Leafs Got An Opening Ottawa Could Not Afford To Give Away
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The Leafs wasted little time taking advantage, scoring twice in a row after Sanderson exited to grab a 2-1 lead. In a game where every shift mattered, Ottawa could not afford to lose one of its top defensemen, and Toronto quickly showed why those kinds of openings rarely stay closed for long. [Read more 🡒]