FINAL/OT | Round 1, Game 5 | Thursday May 27, 2021

Leafs lead series 3-2

Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Cole Caufield

Paul Byron – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Josh Anderson

Joel Armia – Eric Staal – Corey Perry

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Joel Edmundson – Jeff Petry

Erik Gustafsson – Jon Merrill

Carey Price – Jake Allen

Brett Kulak, Michael Frolik, Alexander Romanov, Charlie Lindgren

Alex Belzile, Laurent Dauphin, Lukas Vejdemo, Jesse Ylonen, Cale Fleury, Otto Leskinen, Xavier Ouellet, Cayden Primeau, Michael McNiven

Jonathan Drouin (undisclosed), Jake Evans (undisclosed), Artturi Lehkonen (undisclosed)

Game Report

Just 59 seconds into overtime, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield converted a textbook 2-on-0 to deliver the Canadiens second win of the series. While fans were celebrating the skillful play by two of the Canadiens most dynamic young-guns, Suzuki was giving credit to the leadership of the team in his post-game media availability.

Suzuki spoke about veterans setting the tone for their teammates ahead of the game 6 match with the Leafs as Montreal faced elimination.

“We’ve got a ton of leaders that I look up to. We had a meeting, and guys like (Corey) Perry and (Eric) Staal spoke up,” said Suzuki. “They talked about how these opportunities in the playoffs don’t come that often, so you’ve got to make the most of it. We’ve got a ton of leaders keeping us calm like Shea (Weber) and Carey (Price), and it carried into overtime.”  

Perry and Staal each had an assist and made key plays leading to Montreal’s first two goals by Joel Armia. The trio made for an effective fourth line for the Habs. Perry’s hit on Rasmus Sandin created a turnover to open the scoring while Staal won two-thirds of his faceoffs.

Shea Weber was on the ice for two of Toronto’s goals but played a strong physical game while logging more than 27 minutes of icetime. Weber and Ben Chiarot (28:27 TOI) had extra duty all game long as they played together and then they each paired with Jon Merrill and Erik Gustafsson for their spot duty shifts.

Controversial decision

Dominique Ducharme’s decision to start Gustafsson and Merrill on his third pair was curious at best. It appeared that the coaching staff didn’t have a great deal of confidence in the duo as they rarely played together and were sheltered. Merrill had just over nine minutes of icetime.

Gustafsson didn’t get much more clocking in at 10:18. Obviously this decision put an extra burden on Weber and Chiarot throughout the game. Ducharme argued that he wanted Gustafsson in the lineup to play with the man advantage. But Montreal earned just one power-play with Gustafsson on the ice for 49 seconds.

Which brings us to Carey Price, the final team leader identified by Suzuki. Once again Price had a stellar game making spectacular saves on odd-man rushes, made point blank stops, and robbed blind Maple Leafs snipers. Toronto had 37 scoring chances in the game with 16 qualifying as high-danger scoring chances. Price has been the Canadiens best player in each game of this series.

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Minus

▼  Jon Merrill, Brendan Gallagher, Paul Byron, Tyler Toffoli

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