The first victory of the 2014-15 National Hockey League season goes to ... the Montreal Canadiens.
And it was against one of their most historic rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, on Wednesday, as the new season officially got underway. The Canadiens, thanks to a goal from Tomas Plekanec with 43 seconds remaining in regulation time, defeated the host Maple Leafs by a final of 4-3.
That was the second goal of the evening for Plekanec.
The Leafs had tied the game with 2:19 remaining on a goal from Morgan Rielly, and it looked like this one might be headed to overtime.
“We’re a resilient group. I’m not surprised we came back so quickly,” Habs’ defenseman P.K. Subban, who also scored in the third period, told Arash Madani of Sportsnet.
Here’s the winning goal from Plekanec:
Now, here is the goal from Rielly, which looked for a time like it would send the game to overtime.