First period
- Former Hab Noah Juulsen stumbles and falls, and that lets Jake Evan walk in on Casey DeSmith for the game’s first scoring chance, but the former Habs goaltendering legend makes the save.
- Three consecutive shifts spent in the offensive zone for Montreal. I think this team will make the playoffs next year (not just based off those two minutes).
- Apparently Brendan Gallagher and Nikita Zadorov are getting into it out of the frame. A real Davi versus Goliath situation, but Galagher used to agitate Zdeno Chara, so….
- Josh Anderson made a mice play to kick the puck up to his stick, gain the red line, and dump the puck in the zone at the end of a shift. That’s how you end a shift without a minus.
- Nick Suzuki goes to the box for back-heel trip of Elias Pettersson.
- Montreal gets caught with five men on the ice during the penalty kill. The ref obviously can’t count because he held up six fingers.
- Good, aggressive work by Evans to race onto a bobbled puck and clear the zone.
- An incredible three-on-five shift for Evans keep the play to the perimeter, long enough for Suzuki to be freed.
- The penalties are killed, and Suzuki and Gallagher come out of it with a two-on-one, The captain finds the veteran ,but DeSmith stops his backhand.
- The Habs fans in attendance (and there are a lot of them again) are getting their money’s worth with this start.
- Vancouver gets on the board first with a Nikita Zadorov shot through a Sam Lafferty screen.
- Since that breakaway for Gallagher, Vancouver has taken over the game.
- Montreal is back on the penalty kill after Kaiden Guhle got called for interference trying to keep J.T. Miller away from Samuel Montembeault.
- Guhle takes an elbow in the face. Whoops, the officials weren’t paying attention that time.
- Gallagher takes a foot to the back of the leg and is slow getting to the bench. That leads to an odd-man rush against, and Zadaorov scores again. That trade is working out it seems.
- A great start for Montreal that ended with the penalties. I suppose they are due a handful of power plays of their own over the next 40 minutes.
Second period
- Here comes the first Canucks penalty. Holding the stick.
- Zadorov ate the puck, so there’s a pause in the power play.
- Montreal spent more time trying to corral pucks than getting shots, and the penalty ends.
- I’m sure Tanner Pearson wants to make something happen in this game, but skating into three defenders probably isn’t going to be how he accomplishes it.
- Joel Armia just about gets Montreal on the board with a pass from behind the net by Alex Newhook. The Roy-less second line does draw another penalty, however. They’re almost evened up now.
- Hopefully this power play looks a little more dangerous.
- Vancouver is looking strong in its positioning.
- Zero shots for Montreal.
- Juulsen lays a big hit on Pearson. Pearson pops right back up.
- Guhle gets a stick raked over his face. The officials missed that one too.
- Are these refs trying to put him in his place after how he played in Edmonton? They did end up giving Montreal another power play in the scrum that followed, however.
- Cole Caufield hits the post.
- A rare time that Montembeault gets beaten clean on a shot that he saw all the way. He drifted too far right while waiting for Conor Garland to shoot.
- The Habs do get on the board with a Juraj Slafkovský goal before the end of the period. That’s a six-game point streak for him.
- The horn operator might be a Habs because they just sounded a short blast for that goal. Oopsie.
- Newhook forced DeSmith into a god blocker save to prevent this from becoming a one-goal game.
- Does Montreal have another two-goal third-period comeback in it?
Third period
- A high-energy start to the period for Montreal.
- Montreal isn’t doing enough to outscore Vancouver by two in this period. A couple of good zone entries, but very few shots.
- The game is on running time at the moment with no stoppages, which is really good if you’re a Canucks fan (which you’re probably not).
- Arber Xhekaj just fired a shot so hard the rebound almost came right back to him at the blue line.
- Nils Aman, wearing a jersey that looks about two sizes too big for him, deflects a point shot to make it 4-1.
- That ends up being the final as Montreal can generate nothing else.
- No Habs again until late Sunday night. In the meantime, enjoy some David Reinabcher games with Laval, perhaps some F1 from Australia, and we’ll reconvene for the match in Seattle.
EOTP 3 Stars
3) You wonder what goes on in their heads sometimes
2) Great that he’s recovered, and the career resumption is a nice bonus
1) We needed this tonight
