OTTAWA — Cole Caufield was sitting at his locker after the Montreal Canadiens held their morning skate Tuesday before a critical matchup with the Detroit Red Wings, and he was in a good mood.
The Canadiens were coming off five straight victories. Another later that night would all but assure his team’s first playoff berth in four years. There was nothing to be sour about. Life was good, especially after the last three seasons of misery, when games at this time of year were meaningless aside from their impact on the draft lottery.
That’s when Caufield was asked if he’d like to hear a bit of a crazy stat.
On Dec. 30, through their first 36 games of the season, the Canadiens had an 0-13-0 record when trailing after two periods.
Caufield chuckled.
On Dec. 31 in Las Vegas, the Canadiens entered the third period trailing the Golden Knights 2-1, with Caufield scoring late in the second period to make it close, and scored twice in the third to win the game 3-2. Since Dec. 30, including that game and entering Tuesday against the Red Wings, the Canadiens had an 8-11-3 record when trailing after two periods, leading the league in third-period comeback wins not only since that date, but all season.
Except that also meant that since Dec. 30, the Canadiens had trailed after two periods in 22 of their 41 games played since that date as of Tuesday morning.
Caufield chuckled at that stat, too.
“That’s not good,” he said.
It was a good sign and bad sign, all at once. It shows resiliency and an ability to come back, but it is not a formula for sustained success.
“I’d say it’s a big reason why we’re in this spot today, but it’s also a place where you don’t want to be as much,” Caufield said then. “But I think we’ve found ways to get out of those, and that’s how we’ve grown as a team, this year especially. But when we’ve had leads going into the third, I feel we’ve been a lot more mature as a team. Just got to find that happy medium.”
That night, the Canadiens were outshot by the Red Wings 23-4 but trailed only 1-0 after 20 minutes. Caufield tied it in the second period, and the Canadiens won it in the third.
Fast forward to Friday night, and Caufield was not in a good mood. He was not chuckling.
The Canadiens had their first opportunity to clinch a playoff spot since 2021, when Caufield was fresh out of college, an NHL rookie who made a big impact helping the Canadiens reach the Stanley Cup Final. It’s been nothing but misery since.
The Canadiens had won six straight games, but they lost this one to the Ottawa Senators when they allowed a goal on the game’s opening shift, with Caufield, Juraj Slafkovský and captain Nick Suzuki on the ice to start the game. On their next shift, the Senators scored again, though Slafkovský had left the ice just before Dylan Cozens made it 2-0. And the top line that has driven so much of Montreal’s success was on the ice for its first shift of the second period when the Senators made it 3-0.
8️⃣5️⃣ snakes his way through all 3 zones before Amadio finds the Riddler in front for a tap in. Very #GoSensGo of them. #GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/k0rZPa8njk
— X – Ottawa Senators (@Senators) April 12, 2025
“A win’s a win right now, so we’ve got to dial in our starts, start on time,” Caufield said after the 5-2 loss to the Senators. “We can’t always come back all the time. It’s not any sort of panic button, but it’s for sure something we have to look in the mirror and face ourselves head on.”
The Canadiens were not going to win out to finish the season on a 10-game winning streak. This was bound to happen at some point.
But that’s especially true because of how they’ve been winning of late. Over the six-game winning streak, they had been outscored 5-2 in the first period, they were outshot in four of those games. They were digging themselves into holes and finding a way to dig out of them, outscoring their opponents 11-2 in the third period.
That’s a good quality for a team to have, but for a team trying to clinch a playoff spot and hoping to do damage in the playoffs, it is not a good trend.
“It’s another unacceptable start,” coach Martin St. Louis said. “It’s hard to come back after doing it so often. It wasn’t our game tonight.”
From a macro perspective, this game was especially difficult for someone like Kaiden Guhle, who has had better nights. That this off night came when the Canadiens could finally clinch a playoff spot for the first time in his career stung Guhle.
“We’re human, you think about that stuff, but I guess it’s the first situation for a lot of us to have that opportunity to clinch a playoff spot, but I don’t know,” Guhle said. “I don’t know what the standings look like now, I haven’t looked. But I’m sure, again, tomorrow will be another opportunity.”
On one hand, the loss under these circumstances hurts someone like Guhle. On the other hand, this is the first time in his career that losses at this time of year matter, where that hurt feeling after a loss is shared by the fan base, rather than rejoiced because it helps the Canadiens’ draft lottery chances. That, in a way, is something to be celebrated.
Guhle recognized that, to some extent, despite how crummy he felt about this loss.
“I’ve been on a lot of losing teams in my career, and I think you’ve got to learn how to lose before you learn how to win,” Guhle said. “I think if you ask anyone that’s won anything, almost every single person has lost before. A couple of tough years, turning things around now, you don’t just learn how to win, just like that. You’ve got to get kicked in the nuts before you figure out how to bounce back. That’s what we’ve learned. That’s what we’re doing. I feel like we’ve learned that, and we’re learning how to win now.”
The Canadiens have another opportunity to close the deal Saturday night in Toronto against the rival Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada. They will meet Ivan Demidov for the first time earlier that day, an elite talent who could help them do playoff damage if they secure that ticket Saturday night.
The Canadiens are on the verge of doing something very few people, other than themselves, thought was possible at the beginning of the season — even halfway through the season. They are still in that position, but they are also still learning how to win and how to close the deal under pressure.
They were given a lesson Friday night that they were also given Tuesday night, and the previous Sunday night in Nashville, and the night before that against the Philadelphia Flyers.
St. Louis loves using the term “bounce forward” as opposed to “bounce back.” It is now on the Canadiens to learn that lesson and apply it Saturday night to complete this unlikely journey to the playoffs.
(Photo of Christian Dvorak and Adam Gaudete: Marc DesRosiers / Imagn Images)