Game 3 between the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens was a wild night that featured a bench brawl and nine different goals scored. Both of the starting goaltenders, the Capitals’ Logan Thompson and Montreal’s Samuel Montembeault, also did not finish the game in goal due to injury.
Thompson left in the third period with 6:37 remaining after Juraj Slafkovský scored to give Montreal a 5-3 lead. The Capitals netminder was crashed into by teammate Dylan Strome and needed help off the ice, yielding the net to Charlie Lindgren. Montembeault exited the game 11:39 into the second period after suffering a lower-body injury and was replaced between the pipes by Jakub Dobeš.
While the Capitals had a third goaltender at Bell Centre who could back up Lindgren in a pinch (Clay Stevenson), Montreal had to turn to their emergency goaltender: 38-year-old Patrick Chevrefils.
Chevrefils, a LaSalle-based SPVM officer by day, has been the Canadiens EBUG for about three years, per CTV News. He was at the ready for all of Montreal’s 41 home games during the 2024-25 season.
“It was insane because it’s a type of situation, even when I saw it happen, I didn’t think I was going to get the call,” Chevrefils said to CTV News. “I was telling myself, like, it’s the playoffs, Montembeault is going to pull through. We’ve seen it so many times I’m not encouraging anybody like playing through injuries, but we know hockey players play through so many injuries, so even myself, I was convinced that he was going to pull through and just play through the injury or at least come back and sit on the bench. And it was when I got that call when I was like, ‘Okay, you know what, all right, let’s go. It’s time to go.’”
Chevrefils previously suited up one other time during a January 19, 2023 game between the Florida Panthers and Montreal Canadiens. The French-Canadian netminder was asked to throw on a Panthers jersey after starter Sergei Bobrovsky suffered an injury. Panthers backup Alex Lyon replaced the Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender and finished the game.
“We had him in the room in between periods,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said then per the Associated Press. “I just changed my language a little bit so he doesn’t tell anybody that the coach swears a lot. Good guy, Patrick. He hung out with us. We fed him after, too.”
Chevrefils, whose father was a goaltender and passed away in 2019, wore number 50 in his honor — though against the Capitals he rocked no. 96. He initially got the gig through help of childhood friend, Guillaume Latendresse, a former Canadiens forward who played seven seasons in the NHL.
Chevrefils’s dream growing up was to be an NHL goaltender for his hometown team and throwing on a Habs jersey was a lifelong goal realized. He hopes he will be able to get the jersey from the Habs after the postseason concludes.
“I saw there was already a jersey with my name on it of the Montreal Canadiens, which is like, I never even allowed myself to even buy a Montreal jersey with my name,” Chevrefils said. “I always told myself the only reason why I want to see my name on the back of a Montreal jersey is if I really deserve it. So just getting there and seeing that in the room, I took my 30 seconds, it was like taking a breather. I snapped a picture of the jersey in case I never saw it again and then I was like ‘All right, we’re going to start one step at a time, so just get dressed.'”
Not only does Chevrefils keep the streets safe, but he’s also a professional wrestler on the side.
Chevrefils goes by the ring name Kaden Rose and has six years of grappling experience per cagematch.net. Trained by Dru Onyx, “Mr. Hello Kitty” has a powerhouse style and has several signature moves including the shotgun kick, spinebuster, 3 roses, and the modified reverse DDT.
The wrestling database lists “L’Egocentrique” as an active wrestler, and a match of his in a Quebec wrestling league was uploaded to YouTube as recently as this week.
While the Chevrefils’ wrestling connection was celebrated online, his Kaden Rose social media pages on Facebook and Instagram appear to no longer be active.
And while Chevrefils’ emergency appearance got most of the attention, he wasn’t the only wrestler in the house. WWE superstar Sami Zayn, wearing a Habs jersey, was sitting in the lower bowl at Bell Centre for Game 3.
Meanwhile, Marieville, Quebec native Kevin Owens narrated a hype video for the team before puck drop.
