MONTREAL — It was shaping up as a perfect script for the Montreal Canadiens to punch their ticket to the playoffs.
After years of rebuilding, top prospect Ivan Demidov — one of the final core pieces of that rebuild — dazzled in his NHL debut.
The 19-year-old Russian had a beautiful assist before scoring a slick first goal to give Montreal a 2-0 lead on home ice, all before the game was 14 minutes old.
The Bell Centre was rocking. Fans were chanting “DE-MI-DOV!” and "Olé, Olé, Olé!" at the top of their lungs.
Then the Chicago Blackhawks, ranked second-last in the NHL, hemmed the Canadiens in their own zone for 45 minutes and chipped away, bit by bit, to spoil a big night in Montreal.
“Came up short,” winger Cole Caufield said. “Pissed off about the result.”
Frank Nazar buried the shootout winner — literally — as the Canadiens missed a third opportunity to clinch a playoff spot with a 4-3 shootout loss to the Blackhawks on Monday night.
Montreal needed a win to secure the Eastern Conference’s second wild-card spot and set up a first-round series with the Washington Capitals. The Canadiens missed two previous opportunities to clinch after back-to-back losses to the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs.
“At the end of the day, it's still a big point,” head coach Martin St. Louis said. “And we're going to keep going.”
The Canadiens have 89 points, four more than the Columbus Blue Jackets with one game remaining Wednesday at home against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Blue Jackets — the only other team still in the wild-card hunt — have two games left, starting with a visit to Philadelphia on Tuesday.
If Columbus fails to win both its remaining games in regulation or Montreal earns at least one point against Carolina, the Canadiens advance to the post-season.
"We control our fate. It's in our hands,” said veteran forward Brendan Gallagher. “We don't need any help, it's up to us and we believe in this group a lot.
“Give us that opportunity at the start of year, we're taking that all day."
Tyler Bertuzzi, Lukas Reichel and Nazar scored three consecutive goals as Chicago (24-46-11) rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take a 3-2 lead. Arvid Soderblom stopped 18 shots.
Juraj Slafkovsky tied the game on the power play with 2:57 left in regulation while Alex Newhook also scored for Montreal (39-31-11).
St. Louis blamed a lack of execution and acknowledged that these pressure-packed games had something to do with it.
“They're going through a time as a young team here where you don't get to practise these feelings of wanting something that's so close we can almost touch it,” he said. “When you want something so bad, you're working so hard, can you calm the mind through the storm?
"Can you calm the mind through the storm so you can make reads and execute? I feel like it's a little bit clouded right now with what's at stake.”
Gallagher — playing his 13th year with the Canadiens — echoed his coach’s words, but insisted the group is filled with belief.
“You're going to deal with different little bits of adversity,” he said. “At this stage, that's something you better get used to, because if we want to get to where we want to be, the intensity and the pressure is only going to ramp up."
DAZZLING DEBUT
One player who didn’t appear to feel the pressure — Demidov.
He stepped onto the ice with sky-high expectations as last year’s fifth overall draft pick — and lived up to the hype.
First he danced around a defender to set up Newhook in the slot on his third shift. Then he flashed his hands by picking up a puck that bounced off the end boards, faking a slap shot and calmly beating Soderblom to the backhand on his first shot.
"I got some good stuff today from the game,” Demidov said after a night of multiple ovations. “It's pretty nice experience. Yeah, I love the city. These fans."
"He was great,” St. Louis said. “There was one player that wasn't worried about much and not stressed out, it was him.
“He just comes in and he just plays. I feel like we got to try to get the guys to just trust the training and go play.”
STRANGE WINNER
Nazar — Chicago’s first attempt in the shootout — beat Montembeault with a backhand over the netminder’s right shoulder, but the puck disappeared in the net and wasn’t originally ruled a goal.
The officials ultimately overturned the call after the NHL’s situation room intervened, but only after Canadiens winger Patrik Laine made the following attempt.
Gallagher jumped from Montreal’s bench to argue that the play couldn’t be reversed at that stage, but the decision stood.
"That falls on them, and I get it, they want to make it (right). But the rules are the rules, I don't think you can bend them,” Gallagher said.
The NHL, however, clarified later Monday that the situation room informed the off-ice officials in the scorer’s box before Laine’s attempt.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 14, 2025.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
