Comments / New

Game 2: Habs spoil Jets opening party with 5-1 win.

How many times has anyone seen an NHL team get a standing ovation after a 5-1 loss? Well it happened this afternoon in Manitoba as the second go at the Winnipeg Jets fell to the Montreal Canadiens.

The crowd at the MTS Centre was pumped to the point the PA announcer was completely drowned out during the player intros, and that was just the injures and non starters.

The home crowd wasn’t afraid to throw out their dough at the game, with over $100,000 up for grabs in the 50/50 draw!

On to the the game, where the Jets just couldn’t get it together and it appeared often that the players had their own individual agendas.

It was greatly evident on the Canadiens opening goal, where Mike Cammalleri intercepted a Jets outlet pass by Oduya up the middle and snapped one past Ondrej Pavelec at 3:05. There was bad news shortly after for the Canadiens camp however; with Jaroslav Spacek already out of the game with an upper body injury early, the skate of Yannick Weber caught Cammalleri’s leg.

Both players did not return to action and the Canadiens Twitter account noted that both injuries were nothing serious. There seems to be contradiction on the Cammalleri injury as some reports have it more serious that just a cut.

Tomas Plekanec put the Canadiens up by two, embarrassing Johnny Oduya in a one-on-two at 14:17 of the second period.

The Jets 2.0 finally got on the board after Nik Antropov batted the loose puck under Carey Price amidst a cluster of players in the Canadiens crease. Time of the goal, for all you hockey historians, was 2:27 of the third period.

This seemed to get the Jets back into the game as they began physically pressing the Canadiens. It was to be short-lived once Weber blasted in a power-play goal two and a half minutes later.

If things couldn’t get worse for the Winnipeg fans, a puck bounced off a linesman and onto the stick of Habs forward Travis Moen. It wasn’t exactly Rocket Richard beating/carrying Earl Siebert in 1945, but Moen slipped through the two Jets defenders and went five hole on Pavelec.

Max Pacioretty added a fifth Canadiens goal to close out the scoring.

Carey Price made 30 saves, for his first win of the season, and appeared to be enjoying the game. The Habs netminder was spotted dancing to the music and looking back at the fans during the game.

Boxscore – from NHL.com

Screen01_medium

Advanced Stats: Shift Charts / Head to Head / Corsi Fenwick

Three Stars: 1. Tomas Plekanec 2. Carey Price 3. Nik Antropov

Game reaction from Winnipeg via Arctic Ice Hockey

The Numbers Game

Game Highlights

Game notes:

Certainly great to see the NHL back in Winnipeg, a true hockey town. Humorous comment from HNIC’s Glenn Healy who acknowledged the MTS crowd getting on Price after the first goal, “At least here they know the name of the opposing goalie.”

Also enjoyed the tribute to Rick Rypien, who saw time in the Peg as a member of the AHL Manitoba Moose.

We can no longer complain about bad officiating as for a change, the Habs were finally on the winning side of some bad officiating. They avoided a high stick minor, when Plekanec’s stick clearly struck the chin of Chris Thorburn. The Habs power play goal resulted in a Dustin Byfuglien interference call, that was clearly Brian Gionta running into him.

Raphael Diaz and Alexei Emelin did a great job stepping up with Spacek out of the game. P.K. Subban led the team with 25:45 TOI, and was being booed right from the get go by the Winnipeg crowd.

Andreas Engqvist, getting his second, and maybe last chance, after Blair Betts was returned to the Philadelphia Flyers, was 6-3 in the faceoff circle in 6:56 of ice time.

Did I hear it right? Don Cherry called Carey Price the best goalie in the world

Support Habs Eyes On The Prize by signing up for Norton 360