The excuse is already making the rounds: blame the officials for a bad night instead of crediting Montreal for a good one. That's a cop-out. Teams that are actually good don't need the benefit of the doubt. The Canadiens scored five goals before Boston managed one, chased the starting goalie from the net, and did it on the road against a team that had won four straight and hadn't lost at home in seven games. A grievance about the referees doesn't explain that.
Kirby Dach opened it with a wraparound two and a half minutes in, then Josh Anderson parked himself in front of Jeremy Swayman and jammed in a rebound. Jake Evans made it three, and Cole Caufield ran down a breakaway to beat Swayman clean. By the time Phillip Danault one-timed a fifth past Michael DiPietro, Swayman had already been pulled: four goals allowed on seventeen shots, out partway through the second period. A goaltender got overwhelmed by a team playing the best hockey in the building, and it's fair to ask whether Boston's whole roster showed up competing at the level we've come to expect from them this season.
Boston got two goals back late, both through Casey Mittelstadt off Elias Lindholm feeds, a real player making real plays. A 5-2 final after leading 5-0 is a blowout that got slightly less embarrassing once the outcome was already decided.
RatingThis was real evidence Montreal belongs at the top of the Atlantic, the product of more than one good night against a rival. Montreal went into Boston trailing by a single point for first place in the division and left having passed them. The standings back that up. It didn't happen in isolation, either. The Canadiens have gone 9-0-3 over their last stretch of games, and Jacob Fowler, in net for them tonight, made thirty saves in a game his team controlled from the opening shift. A team riding a run like that beating the team directly ahead of it, on the road, while snapping its home winning streak, is about as clean a piece of proof as November hockey offers.
It's not a guarantee of anything, though. No division is won in the second week of November, and Boston still had won four straight walking into this game. Calling Montreal a lock this early would be the same mistake as dismissing this result as noise. Both takes are lazy.
The one thing that should worry Montreal more than any standings swing is Chris Kreider, who left in the third period after an open-ice collision and didn't return. Tonight gave Montreal plenty of reasons to feel good about this team, but Kreider's injury is the one that could cool things down fast.
Strip away the standings and the streak and you still have a simple fact: Boston's goaltender got pulled before the second intermission in his own building, and the team chasing him down did it with four different scorers in the first twenty minutes. That's a team that can beat anybody in this division on the night it matters most. Anyone still hunting for a referee to blame is refusing to see it.
