10 Thoughts: Habs concede 4-3 loss to the Rangers

After their season-opening loss, the Habs had won four straight games and were facing the rejuvenated New York Rangers, who appeared to have recovered from their terrible first few games. The bleu blanc et rouge would be missing three players, though–Kirby Dach, Patrik Laine and Kaiden Guhle–as they had been hit with their first injuries of the season.

That did hurt, particularly the absence of Guhle, but the stark reality is that the Rangers were the better team on the night. After recovering from the shock of the early Montreal attack, they pressed longer and harder than the Habs and defended better in the defensive zone. It was a one-goal game, and the xG stats said as much, too, but there is no blaming puck luck, referees, or other external factors: the Habs just need to play better in order to win games like this one.

Starting Lines

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Newhook – Kapanen – Demidov
Anderson – Evans – Gallagher
Bolduc – Veleno – Beck

Matheson – Dobson
Struble – Hutson
Xhekaj – Carrier

Montembeault
Dobes

10 Thoughts

1) Oh dear, that Lane Hutson certainly is something amazing, a whole highlight reel of moves wrapped in a single CH sweater. He’s ducking and weaving, he’s faking, he’s deking, he’s doing the spin-o-rama, out-thinking, out-skating, and out-playing the opposition. And if that’s not enough, he’s not forgetting defence, either, defending with his stick–and not being afraid to battle larger players on the boards. Quite possibly, there is no one else in the league who can do what Hutson can do.

2) Ah, yes, the game. The dump-in looked innocuous at first: Mika Zibanejad shot the puck around the boards in the Montreal zone, but Matthew Robertson didn’t handle it cleanly, and Cole Caufield stripped the puck from him and took off on the attack, with Juraj Slafkovsky trailing him at centre ice. As Slafkovsky entered the New York zone, he moved ahead of Caufield, enabling the sniper to weave a pass past Will Borgen and onto Slafkovsky’s stick. A very pretty play, and the big Slovak winger made sure to beat Jonathan Quick with that shot just 93 seconds in.

3) With both Dach and Laine declared as day-to-day and out of the lineup for this game, the top power play unit had to be adjusted. Nick Suzuki, the iron man, played on both units, taking the place of Laine on the second unit. Oliver Kapanen and Alex Newhook also got some time on there in Dach’s place, and the former had a reasonable scoring chance on the Habs’ second power play.

4) The first power play, though, was triggered by Urho Vaakanainen hooking fellow Finn Kapanen near the Rangers’ blueline, just 11 seconds after Slafkovsky had opened the scoring. After some 20 seconds of effort on the delayed penalty, the top unit jumped on the ice. They looked good against the New York penalty kill, with good movement and variety of shooters. With 30 seconds remaining, Ivan Demidov sent a pass across the front and past Will Borgen to Suzuki, who one-timed it past Quick to make it a 2-0 game less than five minutes in.

5) Arber Xhekaj got involved in the second period after Sam Carrick hit Hutson hard on the boards behind Samuel Montembeault. The two tangled–a bit of a mismatch given that Xhekaj weighs about 40 lbs more than Carrick–and when the linesmen were finally able to separate them, they were sent off with matching fighting minors. So, Xhekaj was in the box again tonight (twice, in fact), but in neither case did he give up a Rangers power play.

6) The penalty kill had to be similarly adjusted, given the absence of Guhle on the defence corps. The speculation before the game was that Xhekaj would step in to cover some of that shorthanded time, but that was clearly not what Martin St-Louis had in mind. Instead, it was Mike Matheson double-shifting on the man disadvantage, mostly with Noah Dobson and then also with Alexandre Carrier.

7) Matheson played well enough, but the penalty kill still allowed the Rangers to score two goals on two opportunities in the first two periods (and a bit), allowing the Rangers to tie up the game. For the first one, Mika Zibanejad was able to get a cross-ice pass and one-time it past Montembeault without any defensive coverage. On the second, it was an Adam Fox seeing-eye shot that made it through the crowd in front of the net, and then bounced off J.T. Miller and past Montembeault to tie the game. Admittedly, that second one was two seconds after the penalty had expired but there was no chance for Carrier to get into the play by that time

8) After a rather uneventful second period, the Rangers piled on the pressure and then some after scoring in the first minute of the third. With the visitors out-possessing, out-shooting, and out-chancing the Canadiens, the situation looked somewhere between tense and grim. That pressure paid off for the Rangers just four minutes in, when Matthew Robertson took a long shot from the blueline that found its way past Montembeault. And then, just 1:40 later, Cole Caufield missed covering Artemi Panarin on a Rangers rush, and the veteran sniper took advantage, putting the Rangers ahead by two.

9) Noah Dobson recorded his first goal in the Sainte-Flanelle, bringing the home team back within one and re-energizing the Bell Centre crowd. He took a cross-ice pass from Jayden Struble–playing his first NHL game of the season– and sent a shot through heavy traffic that surprised Quick and pulled the Habs back within one goal, 4-3, with still eleven minutes to go.

10) With the Habs still down by a goal as the clock ticked down, St-Louis naturally called Montembeault to the bench. However, the goalie-pulled man advantage was a bit unusual, as it started off as a five-on-four after Alex Newhook and Vladislav Gavrikov were sent off to the box with matching roughing minors with 3:05 remaining. And, once again, the Habs’ forwards prevented the opposition from scoring an empty netter: this time it was Nick Suzuki skating back hard to catch Will Cuylle and get his stick in the way of a scoring opportunity. The bleu blanc et rouge had some chances during this time, but not ones good enough to get the puck behind Quick.

HW Habs Three Stars

First Star: Nick Suzuki (1g, 0a, 2 shots, +1, 20:50 TOI) played his “iron man” role to the max, making plays in the offensive zone, being responsible in the defensive one, double-shifting on the power play, and, yes, preventing that empty-net goal in addition to scoring the Habs’ second one.

Second Star: Noah Dobson (1g, 0a, 3 shots, 1 hit, +0, 22:46 TOI) got his first goal of the season in the sixth game, to go with his two assists. He was known to be an offensive talent, but his play with Matheson has shown a great deal of responsible defensive play as well, and his TOI numbers show that he is trusted by St-Louis.

Third Star: Arber Xhekaj (0g, 0a, 2 shots, 1 hit, -1, 10:19 TOI) recorded seven penalty minutes on the night, and no points to be shown. However, he stepped up for his teammate without putting the Habs on a man disadvantage, and the Xhekaj-Carrier pairing did not allow a goal, with an xGA of only 0.096, albeit in limited minutes on ice.