Halloween in the NHL: Montreal Chases Five Straight, McDavid Visits Schaefer, and All Eyes Land on Kucherov

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2026 — A 10-GAME HALLOWEEN SLATE ACROSS THE NHL

Montreal chases five straight wins, Connor McDavid brings a record assist streak to Long Island, and every eye lands on Nikita Kucherov in Nashville — ten games, two milestone watches, and a trade report that turned a routine matinee into the game of the day. Halloween, it turns out, is a hockey holiday.

The NHL has put 10 games on the schedule for Saturday, Oct. 31 — the busiest Halloween gameday since 2015, with four of them on Sportsnet in Canada. It follows a three-game Friday that produced two career firsts, recapped in our Oct. 30 roundup. Here are the five storylines that matter, in the order we’ll be watching them.

1. No tricking the Habs

The Montreal Canadiens will go for their fifth straight win when they host Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Bell Centre (7 p.m. ET). Montreal (8-3-2) has done it the hard way, without captain Nick Suzuki, who is expected to miss his fifth straight game with an upper-body injury and could be sidelined another one to three weeks. The scoring has been balanced instead of star-driven: nine different players have scored during the streak, with Jake Evans, Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook and defenseman Kaiden Guhle scoring two each.

The other half of the streak is in net. Jacob Fowler could start after Jakub Dobes made 17 saves in Thursday’s 5–2 win at Dallas. Fowler is 6-1-0 with a 1.54 goals-against average, a .942 save percentage and two shutouts in seven starts this season — and during the winning streak he is 3-0-0, allowing two goals on 101 shots. The Penguins (5-6-2) have points in three straight (2-0-1), and Crosby needs one power-play point to tie Hall of Fame defenseman Phil Housley for 10th in NHL history, at 612.

2. The afternoon treat: McDavid meets Schaefer

Pause the trick-or-treating at 2 p.m. ET. Matthew Schaefer and the New York Islanders host Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers at UBS Arena — the No. 1 picks in the 2015 and 2025 NHL drafts, head-to-head for the first of two meetings this season.

McDavid leads the NHL with 36 points (eight goals, 28 assists) in 13 games, and he carries an NHL-record 13-game assist streak to start a season — a mark he set with two assists in Wednesday’s 4–0 win against Calgary. A four-point Halloween would tie Mario Lemieux’s record for the most points in October (38, in 1988). Edmonton (9-2-2) also brings a team-record five-game road winning streak to start a season. Schaefer is not a spectator in this: he scored the overtime goal in Thursday’s 4–3 win at Minnesota, has 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) in 13 games, and ranks third in the NHL in average ice time at 26:58 a night — which means he will see plenty of McDavid, who leads all forwards at 23:30. The Islanders (7-4-2) are 4-1-1 in their past six.

3. All eyes on Kucherov in Nashville

What was a regular Halloween matinee became something bigger on Friday. Nikita Kucherov is expected to play for the Tampa Bay Lightning against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena (2 p.m. ET), one day after Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported, citing multiple sources, that Kucherov had told the Lightning and his teammates he would not re-sign with the team and would like to be traded.

General manager Julien BriseBois moved quickly to squash it, in writing: “We are aware of the media reports regarding the future of Nikita Kucherov with the Lightning. We unequivocally have no intention of trading Nikita.” Kucherov is in the last year of his contract and can become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 — which is exactly why a report like this lands so loudly. Earlier this week he became Tampa Bay’s all-time leading scorer, passing Steven Stamkos’s record of 1,137 points. The twist: Stamkos will be on the other bench Saturday, in his third season with Nashville after 15 with the Lightning. Whatever happens on the ice, the cameras will find Kucherov first. That is a report with an on-the-record denial attached, and we’re presenting it as exactly that — nothing more is verified.

4. Milestone watch in Boston, noise in Detroit

The Boston Bruins (9-4-1) lead the Atlantic Division and would like to finish October that way after losing two straight — 2–1 at Carolina on Tuesday and 4–1 to St. Louis on Thursday, following a 7-0-1 run. They host the struggling Chicago Blackhawks (4-9-0, six goals in their past five games) at TD Garden at 1 p.m. ET. David Pastrnak needs one goal to pass Patrice Bergeron (427) into third place on the Bruins’ all-time list, behind only Johnny Bucyk (545) and Phil Esposito (459). Chicago’s Patrick Kane needs one assist to become the 21st player in NHL history — and the only U.S.-born player — with 900.

In Detroit, the Red Wings (6-4-3) host the Blues at 1 p.m. ET with points in eight of their past nine (5-1-3) and wins in two straight. The noise around the club is real — former captain Dylan Larkin, who has asked to be traded, is suspended and will be held out without pay until the team can move him — but Detroit answered it Thursday with a 4–1 win against Chicago, led by a Viktor Arvidsson hat trick that gave him a team-high eight goals. The Blues (6-6-1) arrive off that same 4–1 win in Boston.

5. The rest of the board

Buffalo (6-4-3) visits Los Angeles (4-6-2) at 4 p.m. ET, with Tage Thompson chasing a repeat of his Halloween history: four years ago he tied the NHL record for points in a game on this date, with six (three goals, three assists) in an 8–3 win against Detroit. Ottawa visits San Jose at 4 p.m. ET. Toronto visits Vancouver at 7 p.m. ET — the Maple Leafs leg is on today’s Ticket card, and Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson goes hunting for his second Halloween hat trick. Columbus visits Dallas at 8 p.m. ET, and the night closes with Calgary at Colorado at 10 p.m. ET, the Flames arriving fresh off Friday’s 6–2 revenge win over Seattle. Full numbers for every matchup live in the Stats Hub.

Ten games, four time windows, and at least three storylines that will still matter in the spring. Cancel your other plans.

— Previously Staff