The Canadiens had this one beaten. They outshot a Nashville team that's supposed to be nothing special 34 to 18, owned the first period 11-5, and built a 2-0 lead in the second through Nick Suzuki and Alex Newhook. Then they stopped defending, and a game they controlled for roughly 45 minutes turned into a 5-2 loss at the Bell Centre.
Montreal beat itself here. Nashville simply cashed in.
The collapse people keep blaming on the third period really started in the final five minutes of the second. Alexander Kerfoot redirected a point shot with under five minutes left, and Nashville tied it on the power play with 32 seconds on the clock before intermission. A two-goal lead, gone before the Zamboni came out. Montreal walked into the room level in a game it had dominated.
Then the third stayed scoreless until Mike Matheson tripped Steven Stamkos in the neutral zone. Fifty-nine seconds later, Ryan O'Reilly tipped a Roman Josi point shot past Jacob Fowler on the resulting power play. Adam Edstrom added two empty-net goals to make the scoreboard uglier than the hockey.
That trip is the moment the game turned, and it's the kind of mistake that decides tight hockey games. You do not take a lazy penalty in your own half of the ice, in a tie game, late, and expect to walk out with two points. Matheson did, and Montreal didn't.
Pinning it all on one defenseman lets everyone else off easy. A team that outshoots the opponent two to one and still loses by three has a structural problem. The whole approach is built around controlled possession, and it looks good for two periods, then falls apart the moment the other side pushes back: no forecheck to lean on, no composure once it has a lead to protect. That lands on the coaching staff.
The goaltending situation matters too. Fowler made his first start of the season and stopped 15 shots, pressed into duty after Samuel Montembeault appeared to get hurt in Wednesday's training session. Giving the net to a kid making his first start of the year is defensible when you're forced into it. The collapse in front of him falls squarely on the skaters.
This is a young team three games into a long season, and nobody should be panicking in October. They didn't breeze through last spring either, and teams still learning how to close out games lose exactly like this.
That explains the loss, though the shape of it still falls on Montreal. Young teams make young mistakes, but they don't have to keep making the same one, the puck leaving the zone the wrong way with everything on the line, while the bench shrugs. This was Montreal's third straight game without a win, and each time it looks more like a group that doesn't know how to defend a lead. Montreal left this game sitting on the table for Nashville to take, and the man who tripped Stamkos with the score tied can start the inquest in the mirror.
