Sam Montembeault made 47 saves, Cole Caufield scored the game-winning goal and the Montreal Canadiens opened the NHL season with a 1-0 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday at the Bell Centre.
Caufield scored a power-play goal at 7:48 of the first period, finishing off a perfectly executed tic-tac-toe play with Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach. The Canadiens’ power play went 1-for-5 on the night after going 0-for-30 during the pre-season.
Toronto pulled goalie Anthony Stolarz with two minutes remaining, but to no avail as Caufield’s goal hung on as the winner. Stolarz stopped 26 shots for the Maple Leafs after presumed starter Joseph Woll was surprisingly kept out of the lineup with “lower-body tightness,” head coach Craig Berube said.
Takeaways
Canadiens: Montembeault’s 47 saves was an NHL record for a season-opening shutout. He became the seventh Canadiens goaltender to post a shutout in a season-opening game. Jacques Plante was the only other to do it …