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Tomas Plekanec's 1st period goal would change credit to Max Pacioretty. With this news, the teams hit the ice to start the 2nd period, and it didn't take long for Carey Price to make a spectacular save. With just over 3 minutes played, Carey tracked a highly volatile shot by Vladimir Tarasenko with his glove and deflected just enough of it to send it out of the play. The Canadiens looked absolutely disorganized to start the period, giving up clear odd man rushes where Price would have to bail them out. Once again, a big Carey Price save would lead to a goal, as just over a minute after making a save on a Blues' two-on-one, Alexander Semin would score his first goal as a Montreal Canadien to give the Habs a 2-0 lead.
Steve Ott is lucky his last name is so short, otherwise he wouldn't be able to spell it. Nathan Beaulieu stood up the grizzled veteran in a fight where Ott threw punches into Beaulieu's shoulder pads and was not really able to get any clean shots in himself. It looked as though Beaulieu started the fight, but with Ott on the other team it's probably a given he would try to start something if the Blues continued to trail. With that situation diffused, the Habs could continue to build on the offense they had been creating leading up Semin's goal.
The Canadiens cycle is so aggressive on maintaining puck possession that at one point P.K. Subban was behind the net, involved in the cycle. The Blues would get a powerplay after a scrum behind the Habs net with the penalty going to the man who started it, Tom Gilbert. The Blues would almost make it on the scoreboard on a dump in that found the back of the net, but was deemed to have boucned off the inside of the rounded glass on the inside of the St. Louis bench. By the end of the 2nd period, the Habs had caught up to the Blues in shot-attempts 40-40 (although the Blues lead 28-21 in shots on net), but failed to put themselves up by 3 to start the 3rd period by not doing anything with a late 2nd period powerplay.
Scoring Summary
Penalty Summary
Shots
Team Stats