First period
- Thirty-eight seconds into the game, the Ottawa Senators get a two-on-one, so it seems nothing was learned from the last two games and that defensive practice on Monday.
- Following a pressure shift from the Senators in Montreal’s net, Michael Pezzetta tries to shift momentum with a Habs forecheck, but gets called for a holding penalty behind the Ottawa net. Not a good outcome for a fourth-liner.
- The power play is short-lived as Jakob Chychrun goes to the box for holding the stick. Firing a shot off the back of a teammate’s head the shift prior, it seems the defenceman is trying to speed up his trade out of Ottawa.
- Josh Anderson got a chance at four-on-four, but Joonas Korpisalo made a good save.
- Despite Montreal being on the power play, the Senators get a faceoff in Montreal’s end, and no one takes Ridly Greig as he gets around Jake Allen to open the scoring.
- Jake Sanderson makes it 2-0 40 seconds later.
- We can’t blame fatigue for this performance.
- Mike Matheson goes to the box for hitting Josh Norris in the face with his glove, and the opponent goes down like he was hit by a bus. The Emmy Awards have already been handed out this year.
- Shots end up 11-6 Ottawa in a bad first period for Montreal.
Second period
- The Canadiens get another power play as Greig goes to the box for a sliding trip of Jayden Struble.
- “Matheson can’t hold it in.”
- The power play ends on an icing after two minutes with zero shots.
- Vladimir Tarasenko gets a penalty for “throwing equipment.” He flicked Brady Tkachuk’s stick off the ice back to his captain, and the linesman was the one who made the call.
- It’s a more standard tripping penalty to Matheson that cuts the power play short to prevent a short-handed rush by Mathieu Joseph.
- The Habs dump the puck in at four-on-four. Ottawa collects it, banks a puck off the boards on a stretch pass, and Shane Pinto makes it 3-0 on a breakaway. That was just some unintelligent hockey.
- Joshua Roy makes the nicest play by a Hab to dangle right into the slot and send a pass to Sean Monahan. Monahan fans on what would have been a highlight-reel goal.
- Ottawa sends the puck over the boards. Another chance for the Canadiens to do something on the power play.
- Claude Giroux nearly breaks away versus Arber Xhekaj, but Roy comes back in support.
- In the last second of the man advantage, Montreal finally gets a shot, but Korpisalo snags the shot from Caufield.
- Montreal has, after nearly five periods, ramped up their effort to match that of the Senators, and they’ve started to generate a few chances since the power play.
- But they still can’t stop the cycle, mostly because they’re reacting to where the puck is and not covering the places it can end up.
- Another Canadiens power play.
- Out of the box, MacEwen sets up Greig on a two-on-one that developed out of nowhere. Allen stopped him to keep it a 3-0 game.
Third period
- An excellent setup from a line of Anderson, Nick Suzuki and Caufield does everything but get a goal. Korpisalo robs Caufield from in close.
- Smart of St-Louis to take advantage of the one good shift Anderson plays to open a period.
- Kaiden Guhle sends a shot through that gets tipped by Nate Pearson, bounces of Korpisalo’s pad, goes off the post, and slide across out the other side.
- Another Caufield shift, another near miss.
- The Habs have come out to play.
- Montreal’s momentum gets stopped by Xhekaj laying a cross-check on Giroux away from the play.
- Guhle joins Xhekaj in the box for a slash that broke a stick.
- The penalties expire, and the Canadiens have 10-and-a-half minutes to score three goals.
- Caufield misses a backdoor tap-in from Suzuki. In an alternate universe, he just tied this game with a hat-trick goal.
- Johnny Kovacevic finally gets the puck to go in Ottawa’s net. It’s a 3-1 game.
- Despite being a scratch for several games, Kovacevic has moved into a tie for ninth on the team goals list.
- Caufield hits the post. The Bell Centre is going wild in dimension 5276B3ɑ.
- Slafkovsky takes cross-ice feed, but looks to pass instead of shooting, and the Senators soon seal the 4-1 win with an empty-netter.
EOTP 3 Stars
3) After Garry Galley for nine Bruins goals, we needed this
2) One out of three ain’t bad
1) Clearly a new tactic is needed to get the message through on defensive play
