The Montreal Canadiens visit the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday, November 7, with puck drop set for 7 p.m. Eastern. It is the second of four meetings between the rivals this season, and Montreal won the first one 3-2 in Toronto on September 29, as the pregame numbers breakdown at All Montreal Hockey lays out.
This is a preview of tonight’s game. Toronto comes in rested and Montreal comes in rolling, and because the two remaining meetings after this one are both in Montreal, this is the last chance the Leafs get to beat the Canadiens in their own building this season.
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Four straight losses in the rivalry
Montreal carries a four game win streak over Toronto into tonight, across all seasons, and the Leafs have not beaten the Canadiens since the 2025 season opener. Last season Montreal went 3-1-0 against Toronto and outscored the Leafs 12-9 in the series. The run includes a shootout win in Toronto and the 3-2 decision on September 29 this season, when Alexandre Carrier scored the winner, per All Montreal Hockey’s meeting by meeting history.
That history shapes the pressure tonight. A five game rivalry losing streak, at home, on a Saturday night, is the kind of thing that follows a team into every talk show segment on Monday morning. Toronto has had three days off since its 3-2 loss to Utah on November 3 to prepare, while Montreal played more recently and arrives on one day of rest. Rest favours Toronto slightly. Form does not, and form has been winning this matchup for over a year.
Standings tell two different stories
Montreal sits second in the Atlantic Division and third in the Eastern Conference at 10-3-3 with 23 points, holding a cushion over the first team outside the playoff line. The Canadiens are 5-1-1 on the road, 7-1-2 over their last 10 games, and arrive off a 5-4 overtime win over Utah in which Cole Caufield scored the winner. Caufield leads Montreal with 11 goals this season, according to the game preview at Pick Dawgz.
Toronto’s picture is tighter. The Leafs are 8-7-2 with 18 points, 4-4-1 at home, and playing the second game of a six game homestand while sitting two points back in the wild card race. Auston Matthews leads Toronto with 11 goals, 15 assists and 26 points, as Sports Chat Place’s preview notes. The strangest number in the matchup is the goal differential, identical at plus-6 for both clubs: Toronto has scored more, 62 goals to 57, but Montreal has allowed fewer, 51 to 56, and has banked five more points doing it.
Special teams and the crease decide it
The clearest mismatch on paper sits on special teams. Montreal’s power play ranks 30th in the league at 14.0 percent, just 7 goals on 50 chances, and tonight it runs into a Toronto penalty kill ranked fourth at 88.1 percent, per the pregame numbers at All Montreal Hockey. The other side of the ledger flips the advantage: Toronto’s power play ranks sixth at 28.8 percent, while Montreal’s penalty kill sits 14th at 78.5 percent. Montreal has also been shorthanded more often, 65 times to Toronto’s 59, and in November the Canadiens have killed only 6 of 10 penalties across two games. Staying out of the box matters more for Montreal tonight than in most games on its schedule.
The goaltending comparison is just as sharp. Jacob Fowler has been Montreal’s steadier goalie at 7-1-1 with a .925 save percentage, a 2.17 goals against average and two shutouts, including a 46 save blanking in St. Louis on October 27. Jakub Dobes owns the stranger storyline: over his career against Toronto he is 4-0-1 with a .946 save percentage and a 1.40 goals against average across five games, and Fowler has never faced the Leafs. Toronto has leaned on Sergei Bobrovsky for 11 starts at 3-6-2 with an .889 save percentage and a 3.27 goals against average, while Anthony Stolarz is 5-1-0 in six starts with a .910 save percentage and a 2.66 average, and last played October 31 in Vancouver.
Injuries shape both benches
Neither side is whole. The latest injury report, updated November 6, lists Montreal’s Ivan Demidov on injured reserve with an ankle injury since November 4, goaltender Samuel Montembeault on injured reserve with a lower body injury since November 5, and Michael Matheson as day to day with a lower body injury. Toronto’s list is longer, with Max Domi on injured reserve with a back injury since November 1, Elvis Merzlikins out with a shoulder injury since September 29, and John Tavares, Kirill Marchenko, Miles Wood, Marshall Rifai and Nick Blankenburg also on the injured reserve list in the most recent report, as All Montreal Hockey recorded.
Put it together and tonight’s game asks a clear question. Toronto has the rest, the home crowd, the better power play and the more dangerous top scorer. Montreal has the record, the road form, the goaltending edge and the rivalry habit. The Leafs have been waiting since Tuesday to answer a bad loss. The Canadiens have spent a year making this fixture theirs. One of those stories gives way at Scotiabank Arena tonight.
