vs Montréal

The team decided to give everyone hope for exactly forty-eight seconds. William Nylander scored a beautiful wrist shot almost immediately and the collective blood pressure in the building dropped for a fleeting moment. Naturally, that lead lasted about as long as a gym membership in February. Josh Anderson batted one in to tie it up and by the time Zachary Bolduc scored in the second, the familiar feeling of dread had settled back into its comfortable home in our chests. We outshot them in the first and third periods but our inability to do anything with four power play opportunities was a special kind of torture that only we truly understand.

While Nylander was busy carrying the entire offensive load with two goals, our captain was busy getting into a scrap. John Tavares finished the game by taking a roughing penalty at the final buzzer because nothing says leadership like taking a seat in the box while the other team celebrates a win. Auston Matthews was essentially a ghost out there, finishing with zero points and a minus one rating. Sergei Bobrovsky saved eighty-seven percent of the shots he faced but Alexandre Carrier scoring an unassisted goal in the third was the ultimate dagger. Jake McCabe tried to spark something with a roughing penalty of his own and Easton Cowan managed a nice assist, which is likely the only thing keeping the fan base from total collapse.