Canadiens Beat Kraken in OT on Strength of Caufield’s Pair

Montreal Canadiens forward Cole Caufield scored his second of the contest in overtime to lift the Habs to a 5-4 win over the visiting Seattle Kraken on Tuesday. It was the Canadiens’ home opener, during which they held three separate leads before having to tie it late to force the extra frame to salvage at least a single point. They ended up getting two (just like Caufield), much to the delight of the Bell Centre faithful.

Game Recap

With the Canadiens leading 3-2 just shy of five minutes into the third, Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak beat a screened Sam Montembeault from the point to tie the game for the third time. Instead of taking the lead anew, which had been the case each time the Kraken had scored up to that point, the Habs gave up the 4-3 lead, when, three minutes later, Jared McCann fired a blocked Brandon Montour shot past Montembeault, who made a modest 18 saves on a night the home side honoured recently deceased legend Ken Dryden.

Canadiens forward Ivan Demidov tied it up in dramatic fashion with just under three minutes remaining in regulation. As a Mason Marchment penalty for holding defenseman Alexandre Carrier was expiring, Patrik Laine fed Demidov, who, in close, deked out and beat a sprawled out Joey Daccord, who made 17 saves in the defeat.

It was Carrier’s 300th career game. To celebrate, he also collected the second assist on the game-opening goal of Alex Newhook, who was coincidentally also celebrating his 300th game. However, Demidov played the biggest starring role on that one too, finding Newhook at the side of the net on a beautiful seeing-eye-pass the former just had to tip in past Daccord. The Calder Memorial Trophy favourite’s heroics were arguably dwarfed only by those of Caufield, who also scored the 2-1 goal, after Jaden Schwartz had tied it. Off a Chandler Stephenson giveaway in the corner, Caufield snapped it home from the dot.