10 Thoughts: Habs Keep Rolling with Win Over Lightning

After a wild weekend in Montreal, the Habs concluded their mini home stand against the visiting Lightning. While the Lightning were fresh off a loss to the Maple Leafs on Monday, it was clear that the Canadiens would need to clean up their defensive play from the weekend as they challenged one of the league’s premier offensive teams.

One opening they had was that the Lightning are not a great road team this season, so perhaps they could take advantage of that. They could also draw on their excellent game against Tampa Bay during the holidays. The Lightning played a pretty good game as they outshot Montreal significantly on the night, but the Habs never quit and finally came out with a massive 3-2 regulation time win to take sole possession of the second Wild Card position in the Eastern Conference. 

Habs Lineup

Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook — Kirby Dach — Patrik Laine
Brendan Gallagher – Christian Dvorak– Josh Anderson
Owen Beck – Jake Evans — Joel Armia

Lane Hutson – Mike Matheson
Kaiden Guhle — Alexandre Carrier
Arber Xhekaj – David Savard 

Samuel Montembeault 

10 Thoughts

1) The story of the first period was the indiscipline from the Habs. Tampa controlled the play, but the Canadiens were doing a decent job of keeping pace. In the second half of the period, Matheson took an interference penalty before Hutson took a high-sticking penalty six minutes later. The Habs were able to kill both penalties, but they certainly handed the momentum of the Lightning. Montreal got their own power play with two minutes to play, but even that was cut short by a Dvorak offensive zone penalty that meant the Habs would start the second shorthanded. 

2) In a period where the Lightning outshot the Habs 11-5, Montembeault was the difference as the Canadiens escaped with a one-goal deficit that could have been worse. Tampa Bay’s goal came as the Habs were a bit audacious with a line change while the puck was in the neutral zone. This left Savard and Guhle scrambling which was compounded by the puck bouncing around in the Habs zone. Guhle was stuck between getting to his spot and waiting for a slow bouncing puck to get to him. His hesitation was deadly as the puck bounced again on him and found a forechecking Nikita Kucherov who wasted no time in firing it to the net as it surprised Montembeault and opened the scoring. 

3) The Habs were able to escape the penalty kill to start the second period, but on the shift that followed, Mikey Eyssimont beat Xhekaj to the puck before catching both Matheson and Dach puck watching as he found Jake Guentzel in the slot to extend the Tampa lead to 2-0. 

4) Five minutes into the period, Dvorak got Tampa back as he fell rather easily behind the Habs net, sending Montreal to the power play. With Tampa over-covering Hutson and Laine, the latter passed it to the goal line to Slafkovsky. He found Andrei Vasilevskiy cheating in his post coverage and threaded the needle in a rather small window to cut the lead to 2-1. The Habs would tie up on the next shift as the Dach line was absolutely buzzing until Laine found Newhook in the slot who buried a rocket bar-down to tie the game up. 

5) Montreal’s indiscipline came back to the table with seven minutes to play as Gallagher was called for high sticking. Tampa got plenty of zone time, but Matheson was particularly sharp in getting to pucks and neutralizing some important plays that would have left the Habs in trouble. The Canadiens were vocal with the officials at the end of the sequence as Kucherov stole Carrier’s stick out of his hands and threw it away before Slafkovsky skated down the ice essentially carrying two Lightning players on his back and both instances went uncalled. 

6) Both teams exchanged some pretty good scoring chances for the rest of the period as Brayden Point hit the post while Gallagher missed the net on an excellent Anderson feed. The period ended with the shots 9-9 so it was a much better period for the Habs overall. Hutson made some plays, but none were as interesting as a solid hip check on Nick Paul that entertained the crowd. 

7) The first five minutes were rather timid until it suddenly opened at the five-minute mark with the Lightning creating a two-on-one that was one of two excellent stops by Montembeault in the sequence. Slafkovsky clearly beat Victor Hedman in the neutral zone who should have been sent to the box for interference. It was the first of about three blatant calls that were let go by the officials.  

8) As the period wore on, Tampa Bay took control, but Montembeault was solid as shots were 8-3 halfway through the period. It really felt like the Habs were playing with fire while they appeared to be playing for the overtime while the Lightning were accepting what the opposition was offering, as good veteran teams do. 

9) With two minutes to play, Anderson took a shift on the Evans line and Martin St. Louis’ move paid off. Armia and Anderson both won puck battles to find the puck back on Armia’s stick. Armia then calmly found the late guy in a streaking Evans who wasted no time in burying the game-winning goal. 

The Lightning pulled Vasilevskiy after Armia iced the puck with 1:51 to play. Evans and Suzuki played big against Kucherov to get the puck and Evans just missed the net, but it was another icing with 1:29. Evans won the faceoff and the Habs were able to kill several seconds but Gallagher also missed the empty net with 46 seconds to play. Savard made a massive play as he immobilized the puck against the boards for the final 15 seconds allowing Montreal to get away with a huge win in regulation despite a 35-22 shot disadvantage. 

HW Habs 3 Stars

1st Star – Juraj Slafkovsky 

Slafkovsky got the Habs going with his power play goal. More importantly, he was a pain to play against all night long. When he moves his feet, he’s a beast and we saw Tampa commit what should have been at least three penalties against him in the third period because they simply could not contain him when he plays this way. Slafkovsky said Sunday morning that he never wants to hear the opposition fans cheering in his home rink after Saturday’s debacle, and he’s now played his best two games of the season since. Are we about to get a second half of Slafkovsky that looks like his second half last season? Let’s hope so! 

Stats: 1 goal, even, 4 shots, 3 hits, 16:21 T.O.I. 

2nd Star – Samuel Montembeault 

He was the Montem-show in the third period as he kept the hopes alive long enough for the Evans winner. Montembeault needed a strong bounce back after a subpar Saturday night and he delivered. So many quality saves in the third; there is no doubt that Montembeault needed to start this game. Trust the team’s number one, even if there’s a kid stealing our hearts that will be on the bench more often than our hearts really wants. 

Stats: 33 saves, 35 shots, .943 save %, 59:20 T.O.I. 

3rd Star – Jake Evans 

The league’s top-scoring team’s power play was neutralized on four occasions, and then one of the key players in doing so was rewarded with a late arrival into the offensive zone, because he was being defensively responsible, with the game-winner. That’s also Evans’ second game-winner versus the Lightning in less than a month. Poetic, isn’t it? Evans is about to become Montreal’s most sought-after trade bait, and yet many in Montreal are thinking that an own rental is the way to go. It continues to be incredibly difficult to disagree with that train of thought. 

Stats: 1 goal, +1, 2 shots, 2 hits, 63% on faceoffs, 16:19 T.O.I.