About Last Night: Lane Hutson on a tear as Habs enter holiday break

The Montreal Canadiens entered the holiday break in style with a 6-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday at TD Garden.

Montreal scored four times in the third period. The win erased years of futility by the Habs in Boston, where they had lost nine straight prior to yesterday’s win. It was their first victory there since 2019.

Montreal’s defence powered the offence, with Lane Hutson and Noah Dobson each getting three points. Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov each had a goal and an assist.

Jacob Fowler started in goal and made 26 saves.

Phillip Danault also made his first start since rejoining the Habs in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings on Friday night. He was held pointless in 15:29.

Right off the opening face-off, fireworks in the form of Josh Anderson and Tanner Jeannot settling scores from last game by dropping the gloves.

That was followed a little over eight minutes later by another fight, this time between Nikita Zadorov and Arber Xhekaj.

The first goal of the night was scored by Sammy Blais. It was also his first as a Hab, and came from a Cole Caufield-like bank shot from below the goal line.

Marat Khusnutdinov responded for the Bruins 1:17 later.

In all, referees doled out 68 penalty minutes between both clubs. Boston got four power plays and scored on one of them. Alex Steeves beat Fowler with 18 seconds left in the first to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead after one period.

Just one goal in the second period, but it was a beauty. Demidov picked Zadorov’s pocket and undressed Jeremy Swayman on a breakaway to tie it up 2-2 after two periods.

Alexandre Texier was hit along the boards by Fraser Minten and suffered an upper-body injury. The team announced during the intermission his night was over.

In the third period, the Bruins got into penalty trouble and the Canadiens exploded with four goals in a span of 5:18. First up was Zachary Bolduc coming in to collect on the Suzuki rebound. Bruins coach Marco Sturm challenged that it was goalie interference. He lost the challenge, putting the Habs up a goal and on the power play.

The Bruins kept getting sent to the sin bin, allowing the Habs to collect on two straight 5-on-3 opportunities. Caufield scored the first, while Suzuki batted the second out of the air to give Montreal a commanding 5-2 lead.

Then it was Slafkovsky’s turn to join in on the rout, blasting a one-timer past Swayman to make it 6-2. The Slovak forward also got into a skirmish with Zadorov in the game’s final moments to set up a storyline for the rematch in January.

Hutson is on an absolute heater as the Habs hit the holiday break. The defenceman has 13 points, all assists, in his last eight games. No defenceman in the entire league has tallied more assists in the calendar year of 2025, including Cale Makar.

It was also the first time the Canadiens scored four goals in the third period in a game against Boston since 2010.

The Hockey Stat Cards report card shows just how dominant the reigning Calder Trophy winner was against the B’s.

The Canadiens will now get four nights off before resuming their road trip on Sunday (5 p.m., TSN2, RDS) against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Detroit Red Wings also won Tuesday, meaning the Habs remain two points behind the top position in the Atlantic Division.

Happy holidays to the liveblog commenters on our . Here’s what they had to say on the commanding win for the Canadiens.

3. “A slow first period but the last two were strong. Team’s looking good.” — Marc Taillefer

2. “I know we scored six, which is great, but still gotta say, Fowler is winning this game.” — Haari Meech

1. “Normally the Habs have issues playing 60 minutes of hockey. Tonight they played a powerful and impressive 20 minutes in the 3rd.” — Rick Woods