More than 150 penalty minutes, 4 misconducts and a bloody mess in Habs-Sens game!

If anyone doubted the rivalry between the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators, there was no doubt it was well alive during the preseason game at the Centre Videotron on Tuesday night. Habs insider Eric Engels revealed after the game a tally of a total of 152 minutes of penalties with four different players getting ejected from the ice and one Senators’ player, ending up bloodied and out for repairs.

In the first period Florian Xhekaj drop the gloves with Jan Jenik, who ended up later in the game bloodied by an attack from defenseman Jayden Struble near the benches. Struble dropped him, and Jenik had to leave the ice to get repairs as he was busted open.

Officials were so fed up with both teams’ shenanigans that four players ended up being ejected from the game with a misconduct in the last frame. The Habs had to do without Arber Xhekaj for the last minutes of the game, which only prompted Nick Cousins to go dirty as he slashed rookie star Ivan Demidov on his hand in what can only be described as a cheap shot. The Sens lost Zack McEwen, Nick cousins and Donovan Sebrango all out with game misconducts.

In all, more than 150 minutes of penalties were handed out and one thing stood out more than anything else: the rivalry between the Canadiens and the Senators is still going strong ahead of the 2025-26 season.