Game Recap: Habs Fail to Get Breaks, Win Battles vs Panthers [VIDEO]

Game 40 Away game 19 | Sunday December 29, 2013
	Game Recap: The Canadiens were certainly unfortunate with two called-back goals that clearly should have counted. But bluntly, the Habs didn’t play well enough to win. Peter Budaj gave up big rebounds all game long resulting in two goals. The Panthers outworked the Habs winning the majority of the puck battles.   Plus / Minus ▲ Lars Eller, Brandon Prust ▼ Daniel Briere, Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais, Alexei Emelin, Peter Budaj, Andrei Markov
1	4

Boxscore:

Summary:
Goal Scorers: MTL  Prust(4) FLA  Kulikov(2), Campbell(5), Barkov(7), Bergenheim(8) Goalies: MTL Budaj (L)  5-3-1 FLA Clemmensen (W)  5-4-1

Shots on Goal:

NHL Three Stars
	Aleksander Barkov  FLA   Scott Clemmensen  FLA  Tom Gilbert  FLA

Coach Michel Therrien:

• “It’s one of those nights, it’s really frustrating. The first goal that they refused, Brian Gionta said that it never touched his stick. (On the) second goal, it’s clearly a cross-check by their defenseman against (Alex) Galchenyuk.”
• “It’s a frustrating night but honestly we didn’t have the same jump or the same intensity as last night.”
• “We didn’t move the puck well and [the Florida Panthers] put good pressure on us.  They’re big, they’re fast, this is a good hockey team. They did a good job on the forecheck. We need to be a better team to contain the pressure.”
• “Those two defensemen, Andrei (Markov) and Alexei (Emelin), it was a tough night for them.”

Defenseman Andrei Markov

• “Their team was quicker, stronger and more hungry than we are. We have to learn from that and move forward. There’s no question we have to be better.”

Captain Brian Gionta

• “It was no surprise how they played. We had a tough time with their speed in the neutral zone. We had a tough time getting out of our own end. We didn’t win enough 1-on-1 battles. We lost a lot of pucks and had too many turnovers. We just didn’t have a good effort all the way around.”

Panthers defenseman Brian Campbell

• “I felt like we were relentless. We were on the puck all night. We hounded them. I thought we skated well.”

Check back, video highlights will be up soon.  To look back at the full lineups for tonight’s game, check the Game Day preview.

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