- Every time Jayden Struble is slated to be the healthy scratch, one of the other defencemen is a late injury holdout. Maybe someone should keep an eye on #47 on game days.
First period
- An early power play for Montreal. With Mike Matheson absent, out comes Lane Hutson with the first wave.
- Out stays Lane Hutson with the second wave.
- Joshua Roy gets his first shift. He pokes the puck to Josh Anderson for one chance and follows up with his won.
- Utah’s first real pressure comes with the fourth line of Kirby Dach and Juraj Slafkovský on the ice. Lucas Condotta didn’t have many of those shifts. Maybe putting these two together wasn’t the right idea, but we’ll see as the game goes on.
- Cole Caufield is shooting the puck at every opportunity tonight.
- Hutson is playing very free tonight. What is St-Louis going to do, not have an offensive defenceman play in this game?
- Arber Xhekaj goes to the box for interference. Not what the coach wants to see.
- Kaiden Guhle took a stick in the teeth on the penalty kill. The referee, standing 10 feet away facing the play, missed it.
- Justin Barron gets completely lost in coverage and lets a pass get across the top of the crease, but somehow Nick Bjugstad misses an open net.
- Another Habs penalty, this time on Jake Evans for interference.
- Guhle channels a little Hal Gill to slide across the ice and sweep the puck away with his body.
- Even the penalty kill is having some difficulty touching the puck, and that’s never the case. This just isn’t the response you want to see after what happened last game.
- Joshua Roy fires the puck over the glass and will sit in the box. Straight back to Laval for him I guess.
- That’s more like it. Joel Armia blitzes the blue line, steals the puck, and the Canadiens play keepaway for about 20 seconds.
- Well it wasn’t a good period, but at least they’re not down 5-0!
Second period
- Anderson says he’s playing better with a simple game. Someone tell him that putting the puck in the net is simple also.
- Caufield hits Alex Newhook with a perfect pass, but he skates over top of the puck and loses it. The shift continues into Montreal’s zone, and Newhook takes a holding penalty. Just a rough shift for him. A rough season for him.
- Joel Armia does more good work on the penalty kill. He’s the best fourth-liner in this game.
- The second Newhook exits the box, Utah opens the scoring.
- The Canadiens haven’t won a game this season when going down 1-0.
- Brendan Gallagher doesn’t want to lose this game. He falls down and still gets up to keep possession. More players need to play like him.
- Struble collects the puck at the blue line, settles it down, and wires a wrist shot to the top corner to tie the game. A necessary response.
Jayden Struble wasn't even supposed to play tonight…His second of the year ties the game!
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 9:14 PM
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- You can’t scratch a player on a goal-scoring streak.
- Roy gets tripped going for a loose puck. The refs don’t see that one either. Did they put money on Utah tonight?
- It’s tough to play five-on-nine.
- Dach nearly makes it a 2-1 game, but Karel Vejmelka makes a critical stop.
- Caufield gets yanked down. No call.
- This is pretty obvious now.
- Roy gets taken down again. This time a knee is called.
- Robert Bortuzzo’s knee took the brunt of the contact, and he limps to the dressing room.
- Nick Suzuki misses a couple of shots from the bumper position. In more important news, the first unit got two grade-A chances from the low slot.
- Christian Dvorak altered his position from taking a pass on his stick to taking it on his skate blade, and at that moment, the play was dead.
- A very good period for Montreal. I’d say about 400% better than the one they played on Saturday. A few more penalties rightly called, a lot more of their shot attempts on goal, and they might have a nice lead right now.
Third period
- David Savard was given a 10-minute misconduct at the end of the second for letting the refs know how poor they’ve been, so he will spend half of this final period in the penalty box. Xhekaj will take over as the oldest member on the blue line for a while.
- Savard isn’t sitting down long, because the Habs make it 2-1 46 seconds in. Newhook has remembered how to play hockey.
That's one way to start the period!Alex Newhook jams home the loose puck for a Habs lead!
— Scott Matla (@scottmatla.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 9:56 PM
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- If history has taught us anything, it’s that there’s another one in his stick this game.
- It’s now 2-2 after Dach missed to the opposite side of the net the Habs were set up for, and Hutson was half a second too late getting back on Jack McBain on a two-on-one versus Guhle.
- Dach drives around his man to the top of the crease and draws a holding call. He looks his best when he’s doing power-forward things.
- The crowd has gone from saying “ooh!” when Hutson has the puck to “shoot!”
- He knows that holding onto the puck at the blue line is the key to staying on the top PP wave.
- Savard has just been released from the box and he already has a man in a headlock. Back in he goes, for an elbow. They must have his favourite flavour of Gatorade.
- He’s joined by former Habs prospect Mikhail Sergachev this time.
- Suzuki just can’t hit the net tonight.
- Both teams seem happy with their point.
- Maybe not Evans. He fights through a spear to get a dangerous shot on target, Montreal’s 12th.
- Struble just shoves his man to the ice and takes the puck.
- Anderson gets taken down in the slot, just to give the referees one final call to ignore.
- As we always say in out Slack channel when the Laval Rocket get their game to overtime: a point!
Overtime
- Suzuki gets a stick on the puck to prevent a Utah chance.
- Emil Heineman just can’t get the puck to an open Hutson.
- Guhle gets aggressive and blows up a long cycling shift. He has looked very good in OT. He’s everywhere.
- For some reason, the Canadiens just dump their possession away to the neutral zone, and Sergachev scores on the next attack. Dach and Evans were a stick blade too far behind their checks to prevent the winning goal.
- Montreal loses 3-2 in overtime.
EOTP 3 Stars
3) That message shouldn’t be too hard to get across
2) I would be embarrassed to perform that poorly at work
1) Just a consistent effort all season long
