Ugly.
Abysmal.
Indefensible.
Pick a negative word and that is how you could describe Monday night’s contest with the Boston Bruins for the Canadiens. From the outset of the game they were disjointed, unable to connect on any of their passes, and struggling to even leave their zone. With 11 first period turnovers the Canadiens were bailed out by Carey Price between the pipes, who was the only reason the opening 20 minutes ended with only a one goal deficit.
An inexcusable turnover by Michael Chaput led to Joakim Nordstrom’s opening tally, but that would be just the start of the miscues in front of Price that allowed Boston to coast to a 4-0 win despite several of their stars out injured.
From there Price was locked in, looking for anyway to spur his side to a win, which would be the 300th of his NHL career. Instead of the team repaying the favour, they imploded on themselves, and offered no help to their goalie at all instead making life more difficult for him.
A strong few minutes in the second period was all the team could muster against a Bruins team playing the second half of a back-to-back. Trailing by two goals, one would expect Montreal to come out strong for the third period, instead they literally tripped and fell over themselves. A massive scramble saw Tomas Tatar and Jeff Petry almost wipe out Price at the knees, and the Canadiens netminder had no chance to stop David Krejci’s shot.
Then came the last goal where David Schlemko, for whatever reason, upended David Pastrnak directly onto Price, while leaving his back turned to Brad Marchand who had the puck. It’s one thing to not be able to stop a play, it’s another when up throw someone onto the franchise goaltender leading to a goal against.
The team was there for Price against Carolina when he let in some goals, and tonight they couldn’t repay him for what was a great performance while the team struggled as a whole. It’s a game to forget, and after this one the Canadiens owe a Carey Price a huge performance.
