FINAL | Round 1, Game 4 | Tuesday August 18, 2020

Flyers lead series tied 3-1

Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Max Domi – Nick Suzuki – Jonathan Drouin

Paul Byron – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Artturi Lehkonen

Alex Belzile – Jake Evans – Joel Armia

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Xavier Ouellet – Victor Mete

Carey Price – Charlie Lindgren

Ryan Poehling, Charles Hudon, Christian Folin, Noah Juulsen, Victor Olofsson, Cayden Primeau, Michael McNiven, Jordan Weal, Dale Weise

Ineligible

Alexander Romanov

Game Report

Philadelphia bottled the formula from their game three win and the Montreal Canadiens played their part to perfection again. The result was a carbon copy victory for the Flyers and a stranglehold on the series.

The last thing that the Habs needed was a slow start but that’s exactly what they got. It allowed the Flyers to score the winning goal before the game was seven minutes old. The sequence started with the Canadiens surrendering possession in their own zone after a lost faceoff by Phillip Danault.

Danault also lost a draw which led to the winning goal in game three. Cut and paste. After that, Philadelphia clogged up the neutral zone and shut down the middle of the ice in their own zone.

And Montreal barely managed a whimper.

Brendan Gallagher, Jonathan Drouin, Phillip Danault and Max Domi have pitched a shutout in the series against the Flyers. And with that many passengers on a team that already has difficulty finishing, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Montreal has been unable to light the lamp.

Drouin, Domi and Tomas Tatar combined for just one shot on goal in this game.

The Canadiens have facilitated a huge confidence building exercise for Carter Hart who had his dock pilings shaken after game two. As cold as the goal scorers have been for Montreal, it might as well have been Michael Leighton in the Philly crease.

The same names continue to carry this team game after game: Carey Price, Shea Weber, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Artturi Lehkonen.

It’s clear that Gallagher and Armia are playing while injured. But Drouin, Danault, Domi and Tatar need to step up.

It’s time that others start to pull their weight or Marc Bergevin will have an easy decision about the members of the roster that he will take forward to next season. 

In the post-season the Flyers are 6-0 when scoring first; 0-1 when their opponent scores first. Similarly, the Canadiens are 4-0 when scoring first; 0-4 when their opponent scores first. So Montreal knows exactly what they must do in order to dictate the style of game play.

The Habs and Flyers will play game five of the series on Wednesday evening at 8:00 pm.  

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Shea Weber, Jeff Petry

▼  Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Tatar, Jonathan Drouin, Max Domi, Phillip Danault, Alex Belzile