10 Thoughts: A Solid Defensive Effort Beats Carolina

The Habs played their first home game in more than two weeks on Tuesday, hosting Carolina. The contest didn’t feature many scoring opportunities, but Montreal took advantage of what they had, picking up the 4-0 win.

There was only one lineup change from Saturday’s victory in Ottawa.  With Kirby Dach out due to a lower-body injury, the recently-recalled Owen Beck drew in.  Rather than shift the lines around to have Beck on the fourth line, Martin St. Louis elected to keep the other lines intact, meaning he lined up alongside Kirby Dach and Patrik Laine.  The rest of the team lined up as follows:

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Newhook – Beck – Laine
Anderson – Dvorak – Gallagher
Heineman – Evans – Armia

Matheson – Carrier
Hutson – Struble
Xhekaj – Savard

10 Thoughts

1) Four minutes into the game, the Hurricanes had a two-on-one with only Jayden Struble back.  Before the break, Struble was in this exact situation, chased the puck carrier, and watched helplessly as the pass got through and the play resulted in a goal.  This time, he started to challenge the carrier again but he stopped and centred up in coverage, playing it more traditionally.  That was a good adjustment after getting burned on it.

2) Speaking of Struble, he had a direct hand in Montreal’s first goal as his point shot was tipped home by Juraj Slafkovsky.  There’s plenty of talk about how Slafkovsky needs to shoot more as he has an above-average shot but part of playing more of the power game he spoke about recently is getting more involved in front of the net.  He did quite well to body up on Dmitry Orlov and managed to get his stick free for the redirect.  Working that into his arsenal more often will certainly help more as well.

3) Carolina got the first power play of the game when Arber Xhekaj took a hooking penalty behind the Hurricanes’ net.  It’s the type of penalty the coaching staff won’t like as Xhekaj shouldn’t be in that close too often anyway.  Nonetheless, the Canadiens did well to kill it off and they even sprung Xhekaj on a breakaway at the end but he didn’t get a great shot off and it caught a piece of the post.  There’s a reason his point shots are more dangerous.

4) About those point shots, they benefitted the Habs again before the end of the period.  Alexandre Carrier took a shot from the middle of the ice.  It hit Patrik Laine, changed direction, and then went off Mikko Rantanen and past Frederik Andersen.  A rare goal for Laine from somewhere outside his spot in the faceoff dot and also a rare goal that wasn’t on the man advantage.

5) After failing to score on a carry-over power play from the first, Montreal got a glorious opportunity with a 76-second two-man advantage.  Short of allowing a shorthanded goal, it couldn’t have been any worse.  They put on an exhibition of passing, followed by passing and more passing.  Two of the Habs’ skaters barely moved the entire time, making it very easy for the Hurricanes to kill it off.  There is a level of dynamism needed for a five-on-three and short of Lane Hutson moving around, there isn’t anywhere near enough of that; it’s way too stagnant of a group.

6) They were able to make up for it, sort of, on the next man advantage.  Rantanen went off for a cross-check and after a minute of the Habs doing nothing with the power play, Laine was able to find a seam through the aggressive coverage, sending it cross-ice for Nick Suzuki.  The captain had time to skate into his shot and beat Andersen high-glove to make it 3-0.  That was a good shot but still, that’s one that’s not going to go in too often with no screen in front.  Cole Caufield got the secondary assist, giving him 200 career NHL points.  He’s the fastest Hab in the last 30 years to hit that plateau.

7) That was Montreal’s last shot on goal of the period, one that featured all of eight shots from the two teams combined, bringing them to 21 combined through 40 minutes.  That’s the definition of a solid road game for the Habs, who, as you may recall, were the home team in this one.  With not much else to mention from the period, it feels like a good time to slip in that Carolina’s Riley Stillman played in his second game of the season in what is his tenth recall (that’s not a typo).  The Hurricanes have been incredibly aggressive with their paper transactions this season; it’ll be interesting to see what Montreal’s management group does when they’re not operating in LTIR, something they’ve yet to be able to do.

8) Xhekaj took his second penalty of the night early in the third, giving Carolina a shot at getting back in it.  Their best chance came on a goal post from Sebastian Aho but other than that, the penalty killers kept them at bay.  A chance later on when Emil Heineman was sent off was also killed quite effectively as that special teams segment had a solid game.

9) Meanwhile, the other special teams segment managed to get on the board again.  14 seconds into a power play on a Jalen Chatfield holding call, Laine set up Hutson whose seeing-eye wrister somehow eluded Andersen short-side.  The power play comes out of this game 2/5 but really, this was not a particularly impressive outing from the man advantage.  More importantly, Josh Anderson was injured on the initial penalty, leaving the game and he did not return.  With even Michael Pezzetta somehow getting injured during the break, any absence for Anderson will require another recall from Laval.

10) This game was one of those ‘balancers’ from their losing streak, much like the Ottawa game.  Montreal didn’t get a lot of chances but got some good bounces and they now have nine goals on 43 shots since the break.  That’ll help balance out the higher-shot, low-goal games we saw from them not too long ago.  Having said that, they also deserve full credit for a solid defensive effort against a team that’s usually quite good offensively.

HW Habs 3 Stars

1st Star: Patrik Laine – This was a nice step in the right direction for him.  He got the lucky bounce for a goal while his pass to Suzuki for his tally was quite impressive.  His line still got caved in at five-on-five in terms of possession which is still a concern but with some success on the scoresheet, that’s something that Laine should be able to draw some confidence from.

Stats: 1 goal, 2 assists, +1 rating, 3 shots, 15:15 TOI

2nd Star: Nick Suzuki – When I think of Suzuki, the term quietly effective comes to mind.  This was one of those games.  Carolina didn’t give that line a lot of looks at even strength but he made a few key plays at the right time to wind up making a big difference in the game.  I don’t think his line is ever going to dominate at the level of some of the elite top trios but Suzuki is doing well at finding ways to be impactful even in some of that line’s quieter games.

Stats: 1 goal, 2 assists, +1 rating, 1 shot, 6/14 faceoffs, 17:20 TOI

3rd Star: Samuel Montembeault – Considering that the Hurricanes managed all of 20 shots in this one, this was far from Montembeault’s busiest night.  But he made a few key stops and perhaps more importantly, had strong rebound control that didn’t allow many second-chance opportunities.  A solid night from him earns his fourth shutout of the season.

Stats: 20 saves on 20 shots, 0.00 GAA, 1.000 SV%