First period
- No Troy Terry for the Ducks, which would be like Montreal not having their own number-one winger, Cole Caufield. There;s no excuse for not winning this game now.
- The Canadiens have been getting cross-ice passes early, trying to find their opening goal. Caufield was just stopped on a one-timer set up by Juraj Slafkovský.
- For all the talk TSN had about Anaheim’s defensive play and whatever a “team save percentage” is Montreal has been getting the puck to the net at will.
- Lane Hutson sends the puck to the net, Nick Suzuki has a chance at the rebound but his shot just goes off the side of the net.
- Alex Newhook keeps the puck on a two-on-one with Lukas Dostal, and the goalie has to make a save. He’s been doing a lot of work on all these great looks for Montreal.
- Olen Zellweger starts to fall as he tries to collect the puck. Brendan Gallagher just happens to be touching him as the ref looked that way, and sends Gallagher to the box. The other ref should have stepped in a said that wasn’t a penalty, but that rarely happens.
- The Canadiens turn up ice short-handed. The Ducks try to take away puck-carrier Jake Evans, but he lays it up to Joel Armia, who makes a quick move in front of Dostal and opens the scoring. No one is happier than Gallagher.
Jake Evans feeds Joel Armia, and the Habs strike first while shorthanded 1-0 in Anaheim
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 5:27 PM
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- Montreal had more possession on that power play than Anaheim did, and the crowd is booing.
- Frank Vatrano goes to the box for hooking Kirby Dach as he drove right to the net. Good thing the skaters have a good team save percentage to keep the game 1-0 for now.
- Christian Dvorak scores on the power play. Every one of these players now, by rule, has to report to the AHL.
Christian Dvorak(?) scores(??) a power play goal(???) 2-0 Habs!
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) February 2, 2025 at 5:35 PM
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- This is exactly the way the game should be going for Montreal. They’re better than Anaheim, and just proving it on every shift without doing anything too stressful.
- Arber Xhekaj accepts a fight with Ross Johnston, and never really gets any shots in with his arm tied up well. That gives the Honda Center a bit of life.
- Josh Anderson is trying his very hardest to bleed, but Trevor Zegras will only be going to the box for two minutes. Momentum instantly killed.
- With two minutes to go in the period, the ice in Anaheim looks so much better than the Bell Centre ice did during the homestand.
- I was thinking that while the power play managed to do very little in its two minutes. Maybe Montreal is leery of going up three goals in the first period after what happened versus Toronto.
- A 2-0 lead after 20 minutes? Perfect road period by Montreal.
Second period
- Joel Armia gets run into the boards by a lunging Jansen Harkins who puts his elbow into his shoulder blades. Jake Evans immediately comes to his defence. It’s just a two-minute minor as the refs don’t even review it.
- Slafkovský takes a hard cross-check in front of the net so he can’t play the puck. The refs don’t want to have the Ducks embarrass themselves with a lot of power-play goals against maybe? Just call the things that are infractions.
- Montreal can’t make them pay on the two-minute minor.
- Evans is going to the box for holding, which is judged to be a) equally as bad as the boarding charge and b) much more dangerous than the cross-check on Slafkovský.
- The puck starting to spend a lot of time’s in Montreal’s zone again. That rarely happened when they were winning all those games.
- Mason McTavish tips an Alex Killorn shot, and now this is a 2-1 game.
- Frank Vatrano makes it 2-2 just 40 seconds later. Unacceptable performance from Montreal in this period.
- Jacob Trouba realizes he’s going to get beat to the outside by Dvorak despite clinging on, so he just punches him in the face. He goes off for two minutes for holding. It should have been holding and roughing.
- Once again, the Canadiens don’t make the Ducks pay for their violent transgression.
- Dvorak makes a poor pass across the top of the zone, but does get back to block the shot on the three-on-one that develops from it.
- Kirby Dach takes a penalty for cross-checking with 0.2 seconds to play. About the worst possible road period for Montreal.
Third period
- The Canadiens killed off Dach’s minor, but the puck is still in their zone.
- As the period approaches its midpoint, the Canadiens have finally started to get the puck in the offensive zone. They now have two shots in the frame.
- Killorn walks in off the wall and makes it 3-2 Anaheim. Three Habs end up setting an ideal screen right in front of Samuel Montembeault.
- Anaheim is just running at every Habs player who gets close to the zone now.
- But that has inspired the Canadiens to up their own effort level.
- Hutson has to take a hooking call to prevent the empty-netter, and that’s going to be it for this game.
- Two points the Canadiens couldn’t afford to lose, and the effort is even more concerning.
EOTP 3 Stars
3) He had more than one of those in this game, unfortunately

2) Something must explain this precipitous decline

1) But they do know. They proved that for a month.
