Losers of two consecutive shootouts coming into Tuesday night, the Montreal Canadiens were probably hoping to avoid the shootout altogether for once. They managed to do exactly that, with a quick overtime goal negating the need for a skills competition, and giving them their first win of their four-game road trip. Most importantly, they played a solid overall game, getting contributions from their key players as well as some depth scorers.
Notably Joshua Roy, who scored an absolutely gorgeous goal to tie the game late in the third period.
This goal showed some of the qualities that will make Roy a successful NHLer for years to come. The anticipation and positioning to be able to make the play on Roman Josi, the awareness to scan for options upon entering the zone, and an extremely potent shot to finish. Roy isn’t the flashiest player, but when he puts his skills together like this, he can score some highlight-reel goals. He’s quickly cementing himself as a very nice second-line option, and could form a nasty trio with Alex Newhook and Kirby Dach, once the latter is back from injury.
With the top line slow to get going in this game, it was the perfect chance for players like Roy to show what they can do to support them. Too often this season has the team relied almost exclusively on the top line to produce, and in this game, the second line in particular really picked up the slack in the early goings of the game. Eventually, the top line got themselves back in the game, and even scored the game-winner. Being able to provide them with secondary scoring like they did against Nashville will be wildly important to turning this team back into playoff contenders.
As much as the two standings points served a blow to the team’s potential draft position, they legitimately earned this win. To see them do it without relying as heavily on their stars as they tend to was a huge positive, and definitely worth a slight halting of the tank for the time being.
The team appears to be headed in the right direction, and if they can graduate a few more draft picks like Roy, they’ll be able to finish the rebuild.
Click the play button below to listen to your full Bottom Six Minutes, also available wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back again after this Thursday’s meeting with the Carolina Hurricanes.
