Canadiens pick up the pieces after ’embarrassing, unacceptable’ collapse against Jets

BROSSARD — The Montreal Canadiens were still digesting their epic, history-making collapse a little more than 12 hours later.

In a stunning turnaround that made headlines across North America — Fox News called it a “choke job almost too shocking to believe” — the Canadiens surrendered a four-goal lead with 2:39 remaining in regulation and lost 5-4 in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night.

“I don’t know, it’s hard right now,” veteran centre Jake Evans said after practice Wednesday morning. “I think we’re all still swallowing it up.”

It was the latest four-goal comeback in NHL history, smashing the previous mark by more than four minutes. Teams had a record of 0-10,299-0 when facing a deficit of at least four goals entering the final three minutes of regulation before Tuesday.

The Jets scored four goals in 126 seconds to erase the lead. You have to go back to Jan. 21, 1919, when Montreal gave up four goals in 100 seconds against the Toronto Arenas, to find a faster stretch of four goals against in Canadiens history.

“It’s hard to explain,” said head coach Martin St. Louis, whose playing career spanned 1,134 NHL games. “I’ve never been part of something like that.”

St. Louis is known for his optimistic, inspirational approach to coaching. He was relatively calm in his post-game news conference Tuesday but made clear a day later he wasn’t glossing over the jaw-dropping defeat as the Canadiens (9-3-3) prepare to host the Utah Mammoth on Thursday.

“The league doesn’t care what we just went through, so we just got to own it,” St. Louis said. “It was embarrassing, unacceptable. But you hope that we move on, we fix it, and we keep going.

“You can’t just come in and think you’re just going to not address it and turn the page. It’s impossible to do that after what happened … We worked on things that we needed to work on, got the most out of it in 30 minutes of work, because you want to make sure that you address things but you want to keep gas in the tank.”

Hard-nosed defenceman Tyrel Bauer, a sixth-round draft pick in 2020, sparked the onslaught with his first career NHL goal. The 24-year-old Calgarian also completed a swift Gordie Howe hat trick, fighting Canadiens strongman Arber Xhekaj in a heavyweight tilt earlier in the third period and assisting on Morgan Barron’s goal to make it 4-2.

Kyle Connor then scored twice with the extra attacker, setting the stage for Dylan Samberg’s winner on a snap shot at 3:30 of three-on-three overtime.

The five unanswered goals spoiled what was shaping up to be another spectacular performance from Jacob Fowler, who stopped the Jets’ first 36 shots as Winnipeg dominated the run of play. The Canadiens’ rookie goalie ultimately left the ice smashing his stick on the boards.

“It sucks, whenever your team scores four goals you want to give it a chance to win,” Fowler said Wednesday. “I don’t think anybody, let alone myself, in hockey has ever had kind of that situation happen.”

Evans said Fowler wasn’t to blame.

“We just weren’t good enough. I think from the beginning we didn’t deserve to win the game,” he said. “It’s not luck that we scored some goals, but we had the lead. I think it was just a continuation of how bad we were playing.

“We just, again, need to be a lot better, and we can’t think we can just win off skill.”

As embarrassing and hard to comprehend as the loss was, the Canadiens were far from hitting the panic button. Montreal won five of six games without captain Nick Suzuki, who could return from a hand injury Thursday, and sat second in the competitive Atlantic Division with 21 points heading into Wednesday’s action.

The defeat does, however, bring back a worrisome early-season trend of blown leads, with the Canadiens surrendering four two-goal advantages in their first nine games. They appeared to squash those concerns with a perfect four-game road trip marked by mature play and great goaltending, but St. Louis said he has felt his team’s attention to detail, including structure, faceoff battles and changing, dip in recent games.

All are things St. Louis hopes to fix before Thursday night.

“You can’t let that (loss) define what’s next for you,” he said. “Sometimes you get hit in the teeth, and you just gotta get up and go, and that’s what we need to do.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2026.

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press