Jacob Fowler smashed his stick against the boards on his way off the ice, and he was right to. When a 21-year-old rookie stops the first 36 shots he sees, carries a four-goal lead into the third period, and then watches the players in front of him hand it all back, anger is the only sane reaction. The fury was aimed at his teammates, and that's exactly where it belonged.
Montreal led Winnipeg 4-0 Tuesday at the Bell Centre. Tyrel Bauer scored his first NHL goal with 2:39 left in regulation, and that cracked the door open. Kyle Connor scored twice, the Jets ran off five straight, and Dylan Samberg finished it in overtime for a 5-4 win that is the latest four-goal comeback in league history, breaking the old mark by more than four minutes. Winnipeg had lost nine in a row coming in. They were the team nobody feared. They left with two points and a place in the record book.
Entering that night, the Canadiens had held a four-or-more-goal lead into the third period 448 times in their history and never once lost in regulation. The scoreboard said this was impossible; the clock said it was over. Then forty-some hockey players proved that a lead only protects you if you keep working, and Montreal stopped working.
Fowler faced 47 shots and stopped 42 of them. Montreal got doubled up on the shot clock and still led 3-0 after two periods, which means the rookie was papering over a structural mess all night before it finally caved. Montreal had been outplayed for most of the game, just happened to be ahead, and decided it was over because the number on the board looked safe.
Their own captain-less room admitted as much. Josh Anderson called it "unacceptable" and said the only Canadien who played well was Jacob Fowler. Cole Caufield, who scored twice, had nothing better than "I guess we thought the game was over." You don't blow a four-goal lead in under three minutes by accident. You blow it by deciding, collectively, that you've earned the right to coast. Martin St-Louis, usually the sunniest man in any building, called it "embarrassing" and said his team didn't deserve to win from the opening whistle.
Fowler, for his part, was measured a day later: "It sucks, whenever your team scores four goals you want to give it a chance to win." Jake Evans said flatly that Fowler wasn't to blame. He's right. This kid was the NHL's rookie of the month for October, riding a seven-game winning streak before Tuesday, and even Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel could only shake his head: "That young Fowler kid, wow." He's the best thing Montreal has going. He's also the reason nobody noticed how thin the defensive structure was until it collapsed in public.
Montreal is 9-3-3, near the top of the Atlantic, and one meltdown doesn't make a trend, but a team that actually knew how to protect a lead doesn't produce this result on a dare, and Montreal had to do it without Nick Suzuki, out for a sixth straight game. That means Montreal is leaning heavily on a rookie goalie to keep shot totals like that off the board night after night. Win on talent long enough and you never learn how to close a game out. Tuesday showed what skipping that lesson costs.
Blame the veterans who thought a four-goal cushion would do the job for them, and the coaching staff that hasn't drilled a killer instinct into this group. Fowler smashed his stick because he was the only one who played like the game still mattered at 4-0. Everyone else should be angrier than he was.
