A pair of late third period goals, and a 36 save performance by Carey Price gave the Montreal Canadiens a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Habs first win of the season was nearly a carry-over of last season’s Eastern Conference semi-final, with it’s fill of hits, chirping, agression and great goaltending at both ends.
Mike Cammalleri, returning from his one-game suspension, potted a pair of goals and Scott Gomez netted his first of the season for Montreal.
The Canadiens opened the scoring at 15:24 of the first period. Tomas Plekanec faked a shot between the faceoff circles, then wrapped around the net and fed an open Cammalleri out front.
The Penguins hurled 13 shots at Price in the first 20 minutes. With the playoff legacy of Jaroslav Halak behind him, Price stood on his head on several occassions, quckly silencing critics of his weak glove hand, dubbed on some sights that shall go nameless, as the worst in the league.
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The Penguins solved Price, 40 seconds into the second period, when Evgeni Malkin fired a shot in after a nicely set up passing play with the man advantage.
Pittsburgh took the lead, in the third period, after a Canadiens turnover in the offensive zone sent Mark Letetsu in on Price, beating him five hole at 8:42.
While typically Price can tend to let a softie get to him, this time he didn’t keeping his team in the game by continuing on where he left off.
Price’s counterpart in the Penguins goal, had been equally impressive, but evantually broke down late in the period when it counted.
Cammalleri tied it up for the Habs at 17:48, gettting himself in front of the net and tipping in a Josh Gorges shot behind the Penguins netminder.
Twenty-four seconds later, Gomez managed to squeak a bad-angled wrist shot between Fleury’s pads to earn the win for Montreal. It was Gomez’s first shot on goal of the season.
The physical aspect of the game was certainly there, with the Penguins throwing out 47 to the Habs 27. Benoit Pouliot, who is under the microscope this season, co-led the Canadiens with 5 hits, and had a helper on the winning goal.
P.K. Subban continued his chirping and frustrating the likes of Crosby and Malkin. FOr his efforts, he received the boos from the Consol Energy centre crowd, a questionable high stick to the head from Mike Comrie and the post-game ire of Donald S. Cherry.
You can start the Cherry clip around the 2:25 mark to get to the Habs highlights.
“It wasn’t on purpose and Comrie apologized to me a few times and I have the utmost respect for those guys,” said Subban, who led both teams with 24:20 TOI. ” I’m here to do my job and that’s keep the puck from ending up in our net and I’m going to do what I have to do.
“I’m pretty used to it (the booing) since it happened to me a lot all through junior. It’s not like I don’t hear it, but I’m just focused on doing my job. The fans here are really passionate and it’s fun to play here with all the energy in this building.”
Maxim Lapierre also continued his ways of irritating opponents, but did have a questionable hit on Kris Letang that led to him dropping the gloves against Comrie and wound up getting sucker punched by Maxime Talbot.as well.
Fans and opponents this year may wish to be told that Lapierre incorporated boxing lessons in his off-season training, so don’t be surprised to see him dropping the gloves more often than in the past.
“There are guys in the league who know how to push people’s buttons. I played against the guy and I hated him; there’s no one I despised more,” Gomez said of his feisty teammate. “I remember coming through Montreal not knowing his name and still I hated the guy. When Maxy plays like that we’re a different team.”
The Canadiens return home to Montreal for the their home-opener at the Bell Centre on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
