CANADIENS
Montreal

3-2

RANGERS
New York

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Radulov
Byron – Galchenyuk – Gallagher
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Shaw
Flynn – McCarron – Mitchell
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Markov – Petry
Beaulieu – Pateryn
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

David Desharnais, Sven Andrighetto, Nikita Nesterov

Injured Reserve

Game Report

Postgame head coach Claude Julien said that “it wasn’t a perfect game.” That was an understatement. A fast, talented Rangers team exploited the Canadiens defence and steamrolled Montreal’s fourth line. But this was a gutsy effort by a Canadiens team who are adapting to new systems and were playing a road game against one of the league’s hottest teams. 

Julien liked the “work ethic.” There were definitely positive signs of life.

Carey Price was outstanding. Unbelievable save after unbelievable save kept his team in the game including a spectacular spot with just a few seconds remaining in overtime.

Shea Weber looked like one of the top-3 best defencemen in the league. Weber had a goal and an assist in 25:38 of icetime. The unfairly maligned Alexei Emelin was solid, chipping in with an assist.

Andrei Markov played his second superb game in a row. His vision and passes are jaw-dropping. Markov had an assist in almost 25 minutes of icetime.

Artturi Lehkonen earned special praise from the head coach for doing everything well. Lehkonen’s centre, Tomas Plekanec had a good game, coming close to ending it in overtime with a shot off the post. The third member of the line had more mixed results. Andrew Shaw opened the scoring for the Canadiens but took an undisciplined penalty with less than five minutes to play in the game.

The penalty-kill was more aggressive, going perfect on the night. The power-play was 1-for-3 with Weber getting his 11th power-play goal of the season.

So a big win and several steps forward by the Canadiens. But, be warned, this is a work in progress. It will take weeks for Julien to implement his systems and game plan. And much longer to rebuild trashed confidence.

~~~

▲     Carey Price, Andrei Markov, Shea Weber, Tomas Plekanec, Artturi Lehkonen

▼     Torrey Mitchell, Brian Flynn, Michael McCarron

1.  Shea Weber  MTL
2.  Rick Nash  NYR
3.  Carey Price  MTL

• “A win like that does a lot of good for everyone. I liked our work ethic and we skated well. It wasn’t a perfect game, but when you win in New York against a team that scores a lot of goals, it’s always a big win.”
• On Carey Price’s overtime save: “That was a huge save. That’s what Carey does. He does that on a daily basis so we’re real happy to have him.”
• “[Artturi Lehkonen] is smart, he can make plays, but he’s also very reliable in his own end. He’s a real good player for his age.”

Alexander Radulov

• “Carey has been for us always good. Even in that stretch that we were losing games, he was still good for us.”
• “It’s huge for everyone. We’ve been struggling for a while the past games, so it was huge for us to win. We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. It was kind of a different group today than it was the past few games. That’s good.”

Carey Price

• “We were desperate, for sure. We need to play that way for the rest of the season if we’re going to find that consistency in our game. If we can give out efforts like that, it’ll come.”
• “It’s a momentum-builder, for sure. Those are the types of games that make you feel good going home.”

Rangers head coach Alain Vigneault

• “We’re playing against one of the best goaltenders (Carey Price) in the league. He made some good saves tonight, so did our guy.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

TRADE | Canadiens Acquire Defenseman Lowe From Hurricanes for Samuelsson https://t.co/hIDodEynAc pic.twitter.com/D1MxZ5a8GW

— AHL Report (@TheAHLReport) February 21, 2017

HABS PROSPECTS | Stefan Matteau, Size and Grit https://t.co/YkvNMtvqQl pic.twitter.com/gr7MiFz0lW

— AHL Report (@TheAHLReport) February 21, 2017

FEATURE | Habs Bergevin Hits the Reset Button https://t.co/Boa9f1tLlH #allhabs #gohabsgo pic.twitter.com/hAWNK8cuET

— All Habs (Canadiens) (@AllHabs) February 21, 2017

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