Canadiens vs. Stars: Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook Score Twice Each as Montreal Sweeps Its Road Trip

Jake Oettinger started Thursday night with a 1.43 goals-against average, third best in the NHL according to the AP. Montreal treated that number like a dare. Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook each scored twice, three of those goals came in the first period, and Oettinger gave up four on 20 shots, the most he had allowed in a game all season.

The Montreal Canadiens beat the Dallas Stars 5-2 at American Airlines Center, finishing a perfect four-game road trip and stretching their winning streak to four. All four wins came in Central Division buildings, and all four came without captain Nick Suzuki, who has been out since Oct. 20 with an upper-body injury. Turns out the Canadiens can travel just fine.

Three First-Period Goals and a Problem for Dallas

Caufield opened the scoring 7:24 in, ripping a one-timer off a setup from Phillip Danault and Alexandre Carrier for his seventh goal of the season. Dallas answered on the power play at 12:53 when Wyatt Johnston snapped one past Jakub Dobes, with Mikko Rantanen and Miro Heiskanen drawing the assists. At that point, it looked like a normal, tight game between two good teams.

Then came the stretch that decided it. Newhook broke the 1-1 tie at 16:05 with a backhand, set up by Noah Dobson and Lane Hutson. Just 27 seconds later, the puck squirted across the crease behind Oettinger and Caufield, parked in the right spot again, jammed it home for a 3-1 lead. Adam Engstrom picked up the first assist of his season on that one, and Juraj Slafkovský added the second. Two goals in under half a minute, and the Stars spent the rest of the night chasing.

The cruelest goal came early in the second. Dallas had just finished killing a Montreal power play, and six seconds later Newhook banked one in off a carom from the boards behind the net, a bounce Oettinger never located. Chris Kreider and Dobson assisted on the backhand, and it was 4-1 at 6:11. Jamie Benn got one back for Dallas at 8:52 of the second, but the Stars never got closer. Danault iced it with an empty-net goal at 19:12 of the third, his first of the season.

Caufield, Newhook and a Goalie Who Needed This

Caufield now has eight goals on the year, and both of his on Thursday came from the kinds of spots goal scorers live in: a one-timer and a greasy finish at the crease. He played 18:21 and was plus-2. Newhook's two backhands gave him three goals on the season, and he did it in 18:47 of ice time. Neither was flashy. Both were exactly what Montreal needed.

Dobson collected two assists in 20:24, and Lane Hutson's helper on the first Newhook goal gave him a Canadiens franchise record for assists before age 23, with 136, according to the team. That is a wild number for a defenseman. Danault finished with a goal and an assist in 19:26.

Then there is Dobes, who might have needed this game more than anyone. He got the nod over rookie Jacob Fowler, who had won his last six starts, including the previous three games of the trip. Dobes had allowed 20 goals in his previous four outings, going 0-2-2, and his last start against Dallas, early last season, ended with him getting pulled after five goals on 13 shots in a 7-0 loss. On Thursday he made 17 saves on 19 shots and earned his first win since opening night. That is a redemption arc worthy of a sports movie montage.

For Dallas, Johnston had a goal and an assist in 21:41, Rantanen added two assists in 23:04, and Heiskanen logged a heavy 29:47 while finishing minus-2. Oettinger made 16 saves.

Twenty-Seven Seconds That Broke Dallas

It is easy to point at the four-goal total, but the game really turned on that late-first-period burst. Dallas had just tied the game on the power play and was back in it. Instead, Newhook and Caufield scored 27 seconds apart, and the Stars went to the first intermission down two. Against a Montreal team that had allowed one goal or fewer in each of the previous three games, a two-goal hole felt more like a canyon.

The Math on a Road Sweep

• 36-20: Faceoffs, Dallas' way. The Stars won 64.3 percent of the draws and it barely mattered.
• 0 for 4: Montreal's power play, which went nowhere against Dallas' top-ranked penalty kill. The Canadiens did not need it.
• 4 on 20: Goals allowed and shots faced by Oettinger, the most goals he had surrendered in a game this season.
• 5-1-1: Montreal's road record after the sweep.
• 13 and 4: Goals scored and allowed by Montreal across the four-game road trip.

Where Things Stand

Montreal improved to 8-3-2 with 18 points and heads home riding a four-game winning streak. Martin St-Louis' team has now gone 4-0 without its captain, and it will try to keep that rolling when Pittsburgh visits the Bell Centre on Halloween night.

Dallas fell to 7-5-1 with 15 points and 4-4-0 at home. The Stars had won five straight before a 5-1 home loss to New Jersey on Tuesday, and now they have dropped two in a row. They are 3-2-0 on a six-game homestand that wraps up Saturday against Columbus, and getting out of it with a winning record suddenly matters a lot more than it did a week ago.

Road Warriors, Minus the Captain

Losing your captain for weeks is supposed to be the moment a young team stalls. Montreal has instead gone on the road, through four Central Division buildings, and come back with eight points. Montreal has gone full Mighty Ducks: a goalie with something to prove, a rookie who keeps taking starts, and a roster that keeps finding goals without its leader. The difference is that this is not a movie, and the eight points are very real.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details as reported by the Associated Press and the Montreal Canadiens on nhl.com.