First period
- An early shot leads to a mid-air rebound heading Josh Anderson’s way, but he can’t sort our his hands and feet in time to make contact with the puck.
- The Bell Centre ice still looks dreadful.
- Alex Newhook goes on a rush and gets yanked down by his shoulder. The refs make no call.
- Mike Matheson gets his feet chopped from underneath him as he tries to gain the zone. The refs make no call.
- Patrik Laine is making quicker decisions with the puck today, just chipping it to teammates immediately rather than trying to stick-handle and make a play.
- Lane Hutson makes two great fakes to get the puck to the slot, but it slips off his stick just as he goes to shoot it. He still follows up with a perfect pass to Christian Dvorak at the side of the net that just isn’t converted.
- The Canadiens get their second shot on goal with 11 minutes played, but they’ve been getting many more chances than that.
- Owen Beck steals the puck, gains the zone, and makes an excellent pass to the top of the crease. Once again the play dies on Dvorak’s stick.
- The pairing of Arber Xhekaj and David Savard drops below the goal line to play the puck as it comes around the boards. Savard misses it as it comes around, and Tomas Tatar is in between the two defenceman to take the puck. He slings a pass to the high slot, and Jesper Bratt attacks with speed and fires the puck past Samuel Montembeault glove-side to open the scoring.
- The linesman is very demonstrative in kicking both players out of the faceoff at the same time. For five brief seconds, he was the most powerful man in the world.
- The Devils are receiving the game’s first power play after Mike Matheson high-sticked Bratt.
- With the penalty killed, Nick Suzuki sends a backhand pass to Cole Caufield, but Jake Allen read it well to make the save.
- Lots of chances for the Canadiens to score (Natural Stat Trick lists seven), but they can’t convert on them and trail by a goal after 20 minutes.
Second period
- Hutson backchecks, lifts a stick, and steals the puck to prevent a dangerous rush chance for the Devils.
- Johnny Kovacevic grabs Brendan Gallagher on a zone entry, and that will result in Montreal’s first power play of the game.
- Again Laine’s more instinctual play sees the power play fire several shots on Allen. They just can’t get the puck to go in right now.
- The puck sits to the side of Allen in the crease. Both Juraj Slafkovský and Cole Caufield poke at the puck at the same time and end up pushing it wide.
- Anderson gets hooked on a breakaway, but still gets a decent backhand shot away. He’s not happy there was no call, and he has a strong case.
- Montreal has taken full control of the game, and it’s because their defensive play and transition as a five-man unit is looking closer to what it did in early January.
- It the third game of his post-AHL All-Star Game call-up and Beck is already doing more impressive things than Dvorak. The time has come to give him that fourth-line centre spot and let him run with it.
- Logan Mailloux leaves his man at the top of the crease to try to block a shot. Hutson tries to scramble back and knock Paul Cotter off stride so can’t get to the rebound, but the Devils forward still gets enough on the shot.
- Beck takes a stick in the mouth, but the refs don’t see that one.
- I don’t like the amount of long-range shots the Canadiens are taking. The defencemen need to have more patience and set up something more dangerous.
- Kovacevic is off to the box for a second time this period as he was forced to haul Caufield down. Only 7.4 seconds to try to convert in this period.
Third period
- The Habs need to make this period-opening power play count to get back in this game.
- The first wave’s shift was uninspiring to say the least.
- Well that was an utter disaster. The Canadiens didn’t get set up once in almost two minutes of power-play time, and a second after Kovacevic came out of the box, Jack Hughes makes it 3-0 on what was a short-handed two-on-one.
- Montreal just spent two full shifts with a change on the fly in New Jersey’s zone without actually putting a puck on net.
- Luke Hughes spins, fires, and beats Montembeault clean as he drifts to the right side of the net.
- I don’t think allowing four goals on 19 shots is the send-off Montembeault wanted before joining Team Canada.
- Montreal is increasing its shot total as the game plays out, but now even the players seem to expect them to actually go in.
- With 15 seconds to play, Beck gets a penalty shot. A good individual reward for a great game from him.
- I think Allen saved that with the upper part of his stick. They just weren’t meant to have any joy in this game today as they fall 4-0.
EOTP 3 Stars
3) I crunched these numbers after the game got to 4-0. Xhekaj is at a fairly standard 60% of shot attempts (individual Corsi for) being unblocked (individual Fenwick for). The real star in that regard is Alexandre Carrier who gets 76% of his shot attempts through.
2) He just wants to make his case for 20 more starts to improve that draft pick
1) He is an NHLer now
