The Blackhawks have their first home game of the 2025-26 season on Saturday night at the United Center, with another Original Six team joining the festivities in the Montreal Canadiens.
Montreal has been a steady ascent for the last few seasons, starting with a dreadful 55-point season back in 2021-22 before seasons of, in order: 68, 76 and then 91 points, with the latter of that trio being the amount that sent the Canadiens into the postseason for the first time since the COVID-shortened 2021 season when Montreal reached the Cup Final. That trajectory has led to higher expectations for this season for this surging Canadiens side, which boasts plenty of young talent, led by 26-year-old captain and No. 1 center Nick Suzuki. Cole Caufield is another legit top-six forward option, coming off a 70-point season (37 G, 33 A) in a full 82 last season. Those two are joined on the top line by 2022 No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky, who has back-to-back seasons in the 50-point range.
Third on the points last season was now 21-year-old blue-liner Lane Hutson, who has Montreal all atwitter after winning the 2025 Calder Trophy following a 66-point (6 G, 60 A) rookie season. Some of the other youngsters to keep an eye on this game include (/sigh) Ivan Demidov, Zack Bolduc and old friend Kirby Dach, who’ll get to face his brother again after Colton skated against Kirby in his NHL debut back in January. Veterans like Patrik Laine and Brendan Gallagher provide additional complementary scoring for a Montreal team that has a fairly well-rounded attack.
The blue line also has a decent mix of youth and experience, although it trends toward a younger group as well. Along with the aforementioned Hutson, there’s former Islanders first-round pick Noah Dobson (25 years old), and Mike Matheson on the top pair, with Kaiden Guhle (23) joining Hutson on the second. Arber Xhekaj and Alex Carrier combine on the third pair, rounding a blue line has decent enough depth but with Hutson as the obvious star attraction. In net, Sam Montembeault was the workhorse last season with 62 appearances, including 60 starts, posting numbers of 31-24-7, .901 and 2.82. Montreal last played Thursday, picking up its first win of the season in a 5-1 defeat of Detroit. With backup Jakub Dobes handling that game, Montembeault would be the expected starter for this one.
Brush up on your French while checking out Montreal’s lines from that last game, which will likely be its lineup for this one:
La formation du CH lors de l'échauffement à Detroit. Aucun changement, sauf Dobes comme gardien. Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky Bolduc-Dach-Gallagher Newhook-Kapanen-Demidov Anderson-Evans-Laine Matheson-Dobson Guhle-Hutson Carrier-Xhekaj Dobes Montembeault
— Jean-François Chaumont (@jfchaumontlnh.bsky.social) October 9, 2025 at 5:37 PM
As for the Hawks, Friday brought a little news regarding some player movement:
Blackhawks send Ethan Del Mastro to Rockford.
— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) October 10, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Del Mastro had some tough moments during the preseason — to say the least — and didn’t look much better against Florida, so this move doesn’t come as a major surprise. But he didn’t play against Boston on Thursday, either, so that didn’t affect the D pairings noted during the morning skate:
Blackhawks lines: Dach-Bedard-Burakovsky Teravainen-Nazar-Bertuzzi Donato-Greene-Mikheyev Foligno-Reichel-Lafferty Vlasic-Rinzel Kaiser-Levshunov Grzelcyk-Murphy Knight is in the starter’s crease.
— Greg Boysen (@gregboysen.bsky.social) October 11, 2025 at 9:35 AM
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Boysen mentioned that Crevier was rotating in and out of the action during the morning skate, so there could be another 11/7 rotation happening during this game, which is a little weird but typically means Connor Bedard gets some extra shifts, which isn’t a bad thing. Another item to note is Lukas Reichel centering the fourth line, so he could be making his season debut.
Should be plenty of buzz inside the UC for the initial home game of the season, and this Montreal team falls somewhere in the wide gulf between the defending champion Panthers and the postseason-absent Bruins. A little extra juice from the home side will likely be needed to give that home crowd a show and pick up a pair of points, but it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Canadiens
44.09% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 47.49% (28th)
43.03% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 47.03% (28th)
2.73 (26th) — Goals per game — 2.96 (17th)
3.56 (31st) — Goals against per game — 3.18 (23rd)
44.8% (31st) — Faceoffs — 50.8% (13th)
24.9% (7th) — Power play — 20.1% (21st)
79.3% (14th) — Penalty kill — 80.9% (9th)
(All stats from last season)
How to watch
When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+, Hulu
Radio: WGN 720