10 Thoughs: Habs down Panthers to stay in the chase

Unusually, the Canadiens had a Saturday night off this week, instead playing a Sunday-afternoon game in Miami. They faced the Florida Panthers, who are in an extremely tight fight with Toronto and Tampa Bay for the regular-season division championship. Meanwhile, the slumping Habs are trying to hang on to the final wildcard spot, but had dropped five games in a row prior to this one.

That (admittedly short) slump had prompted head coach Martin St-Louis to tell the team that they were better than they had looked over those five games, and it seemed that the players heard their message. Admittedly, the Habs’ style of play was a better fit against the Panthers, but there were far fewer blind passes and defensive errors on display. Combine that with strong power-play work and solid goaltending, and there should be no surprise that the bleu blanc et rouge were able to finish the game with a regulation 4-2 victory.

Starting Lines

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

Guhle – Hutson
Matheson – Carrier
Struble – Savard

Montembeault
Dobes

Ten Thoughts

1) St-Louis did not repeat the (rather unsuccessful) 11F/7F experiment again, instead drawing in Michael Pezzetta on the left wing rather than using Arber Xhekaj as a temporary seventh defenceman. Pezzetta is certainly marginal on the line with Joel Armia and Jake Evans, but the blender effect caused by a missing forward is worse, disrupting all forward lines.

2) The Canadiens started much better than in recent games, but four minutes in, as the puck was chipped into the Montreal zone, we saw the first of the defensive errors, as Kaiden Guhle cleared the error from behind the goal line, only to put it on the stick of Sam Bennett. Fortunately, Bennett’s shot glanced off the crossbar, as Montembeault had scant time to react to it.

3) Brendan Gallagher, whom the referees love to send to the penalty box, was called at 4:05 for high-sticking Uvis Balinskis. Fortunately, Anton Lundell took only about a minute to even things out with his own high-sticking call, this one against Joel Armia. The Panthers’ power play produced but a singular shot before Anton Lundell took a high-sticking penalty himself, on Joel Armia. The ensuing four-on-four didn’t result in much action, as the Habs’ top players did not find chances, nor did the ensuing short Montreal power play.

4) Fortunately, some five minutes later, Tobias Bjornfot got his stick up (do we see a pattern yet?) on Christian Dvorak and headed off to the penalty box. It took only 16 seconds for the Habs to get on the board as Nick Suzuki won the offensive-zone faceoff and got the puck back to Lane Hutson. Hutson then timed a pass to Patrik Laine at the bottom of the left-side circle perfectly, enabling the big Finn to fire off his trademark laser one-timer, beating Sergey Bobrovsky on the far post.

5) As so often has been the case this season, though, the opposition managed to respond far too quickly to a Montreal goal. This time, it was the Florida captain, Alexander Barkov, beating Alexandre Carrier behind the net, and feeding the puck to Sam Reinhart just on the other side of the goal line. Reinhart, completely without defensive coverage, skated directly in front of Samuel Montembeault and then beat him on a backhand shot to tie up the game.

6) The Canadiens managed only four shots on Bobrovsky in the second period but it was their power play–their only one of the second frame–that they managed to leverage for maximum impact. A pass from Suzuki to the right side of the net, and Slafkovsky appeared to attempt a cross-ice pass to Laine, but Seth Jones, attempting to block it in front of the net, actually deflected it into the net past a surprised Bobrovsky.

7) Jones, however, redeemed himself some five minutes later. Set up by Barkov again, Jones one-timed a shot on Montembeault from the top of the left circle, beating a seemingly surprised Montembeault through the five-hole. Given the distance for the shot, one would hope for Montembeault to be able to stop it, but there was a fair bit of traffic that surely contributed to the goal.

8) It was left to Suzuki, then, to claim the game for Montreal for good, and he did what he needed to do, two minutes into the final period. With the Habs pressing, Hutson sent a cross-ice pass from the right-side boards, just in front of Bobrovsky, and Suzuki one-timed the winning shot from the bottom of the left-side circle, nearly the same spot as the one where Laine had scored the opening goal.

9) With five minutes remaining in the period, Carter Verhaeghe pulled the stick from Gallagher’s hands, but Gallagher didn’t get the call, as so often happens, as blatant as the holding was. The revenge was sweet, though, as the veteran winger jumped on a loose puck after Christian Dvorak blocked a Jones shot. He took a second or two and then loosed a careful shot from the Montreal zone into the empty Panthers net to seal the score at 4-2.

10) With the Canadian fans in stands singing “Ole, Ole, Ole”, Niko Mikkola decided to release his frustrations by taking a massive slap shot from the Florida zone at Montembeault. It nearly decapitated David Savard, and definitely precipitated a full scrum in the Florida zone. A cheap shot, it was rewarded with a meaningless 10-minute misconduct at the buzzer, but there may be further consequences yet as the teams meet again on Tuesday in Montreal.

HW Habs Three Stars

First Star: Lane Hutson (0g, 3a, 1 shot, +2, 23:31 TOI) showed once again why he should be at the top of everyone’s Calder Trophy voting lists. 23 minutes as a rookie, against top-line opposition, and yet he manages to skate circles against the opposing players and set up three goals in the process.

Second Star: Nick Suzuki (1g, 2a, 2 shots, +0, 18:10 TOI) played yet another strong game, taking his season points total to 77 with nine games still remaining. There is no doubt that he is the top-line centre that the Habs Fans have been clamouring for for the past fifteen years, and there is surely still more to come.

Third Star: Samuel Montembeault (26 shots, 24 saves, .923 save %, +0.75 GSAx) could take partial blame for one of the goals, but he held the fort when it mattered, making the saves that the team needed in order to take the game to the Panthers. After a few middling games, Montembeault showed again what he is capable of.