MONTREAL – The Montreal Alouettes have another opportunity to punch their ticket to the CFL playoffs Friday night.
After failing to clinch their spot last week in Winnipeg, the Alouettes return home hoping to secure a post-season berth — and a home playoff game — with a victory over the surging B.C. Lions at Percival Molson Stadium.
Montreal would also assure itself of a playoff appearance for a seventh straight year with a Toronto Argonauts loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Labour Day Monday.
“We’ve been playing good football through 11 games, but the job is not done,” said Alouettes head coach Jason Maas. “Our goal every week is to go 1-0. That is real in our building. We prepare every week, we respect our opponents. When you’re winning, good things happen.”
Montreal (9-2) saw its seven-game winning streak end with a 44-28 loss to the Blue Bombers last week. The Alouettes remain atop the East Division, eight points ahead of second-place Toronto.
“We got to do a good job and be a mature football team,” said starting quarterback Davis Alexander. “Coming off a tough loss, there was a lot of emotion in that game. Guys are going to naturally want to knock out a team.
“We’ve got to play a full four quarters and make sure we keep our emotions to ourselves and play our best brand of football in front of our fans.”
Alexander will lead Montreal’s offence despite an injury scare that threatened to sideline him.
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The 27-year-old suffered an apparent right calf injury in Winnipeg and later underwent an MRI on his calf and ankle. The tests showed no structural damage.
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Alexander is still feeling the effects of the injury, which he has been partially nursing throughout the season. He has worn a compression sleeve on his heavily bandaged right leg this week while receiving treatment that included massages, stretching and light workouts.
Maas remains confident his quarterback will be ready.
“Once we got the imaging done and we knew there was nothing structurally wrong with him, it was just a couple days that he needed,” Maas said. ” It was really the willingness of him to see what he could kind of move through and how it would feel.
Each moment he was out there, he was kind of feeling better and better. He never had a setback this week at all.”
Alexander leads the CFL with 3,657 passing yards and 24 touchdown passes, tied with Toronto’s Chad Kelly for the league lead.
He and Montreal’s offence will face a major test against a B.C. defence that ranks first in the CFL in net defence, allowing 344.7 yards per game, and first against the run at 58.8 yards per contest.
The Lions (6-5) have also surged into form. After opening the season 1-5, B.C. has won five straight, including Sunday’s 45-24 victory over the Ottawa Redblacks. The Lions have not allowed more than 26 points in a game during their winning streak.
“We know they’ve got a good offence and an explosive quarterback,” said Montreal receiver Tyler Snead. “Defensively, they’ve really stepped it up these past couple weeks, just playing physical.”
Snead surpassed 1,000 receiving yards for the second consecutive season last week. He enters Friday’s game with 1,089 yards, just 40 shy of the career-high 1,129 he established last year.
Friday will also mark the return of linebacker Darnell Sankey to Montreal for the first time since signing with the Lions in the offseason.
Sankey spent three seasons with the Alouettes from 2023-25 and has recorded 57 defensive tackles this season. Now, he’ll be tasked with helping stop the offence he once practiced against every day.
“I love the city of Montreal,” said Sankey on Wednesday. “They treated me well. It’s just all business, though, at the end of the day. If you start letting your feelings get involved and start taking things personal, you start to not play your best football.”
Alexander called Sankey “a smart football player” and expects his former teammate to be fired up for his return.
“He’s going to have those boys tuned up and ready to go,” Alexander said. “It’s a privilege to play against a guy like that.”
B.C.’s unusual week has added another wrinkle. Rather than returning home after Sunday’s win, the Lions stayed in Ottawa, practising there Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to Montreal on Thursday.
Lions head coach Buck Pierce acknowledged the arrangement is unusual but embraced the opportunity for his team to spend more time together.
“Some of the best things about this league are these short weeks, these Eastern trips for a Western team to come out and play a good physical football team and spending a week together,” said Pierce.
B.C. has won six straight against Montreal dating back to July 2023. The Alouettes, however, are a perfect 6-0 at home this season.
“They are a physical group that is extremely well-coached,” Pierce said. “They execute at an extremely high level. We have to make sure we’re able to execute at a high level. If you don’t against that team, you’ve seen throughout the course of the season what can happen in those situations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2026.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
