by Taylor McIlwaine , Digital Media Producer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
TORONTO, ON. — It was a hockey night in Canada in every organic sense possible; classic Canadian rivals, the Montreal Canadiens met the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre for the first time this season.
In their ninth game of the season, the Habs set an NHL record for the most consecutive regulation wins to begin a season with their perfect record of 9-0-0, however, they seemed to be losing hold of the strong possession game we’ve seen so far this year.
“It’s nice, but we feel like our game the past few games has maybe been slipping a little bit and we’ve got to get back on track with dominating the possession game, I think 52 shots is too just too much, and we relied on Carey way too much, and that’s a bad feeling for the guys.” – Max Pacioretty
While the Habs took the ‘W’ in a 5-3 victory over the Leafs, Captain Max seemed to hit the nail right on the head in that the victory this time may have fallen from the grace of Carey Price. Regardless, a win is a win and hopefully the team can follow through on Pacioretty’s words “we would have liked to play […] a little bit more in the opposition zone and we look forward to doing that hopefully next game.”
Here are some of the best moments from Saturday night’s game.
Devante Smith-Pelly got things going with a great attempt to find the net behind Leafs goalie, Jonathan Bernier.
Price, who made a crazy 49 saves, set up a creative and impressive play to Emelin,
however, it was PK Subban that really got everyone talking with this insane ~ 155 km shot and ultimate goal putting the Habs on the board.
It was Lars Eller who turned a beautiful play by Alexander Galchenyuk into a goal, advancing the Habs lead to 2-0.
Following a goal by Leo Komarov to put the Leafs on the board, David Desharnais got past Bernier, making it 3-1 for the Canadiens.
James Van Riemsdyk responded with a goal, making the score 3-2, that is until Pacioretty put a fast one past Bernier, unassisted.
Joffrey Lupul made a feisty attempt to pull one over on Price, but no dice.
On another insane slapshot from Subban, Brendan Gallagher tipped a final goal in for the Habs, bringing the score to 5-2.
Dion Phaneuf made one last attempt on the part of his team but the Leafs captain was no match for Price.
Up next, the Canadiens will visit the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night, reuniting with Brandon Prust for the first time and beginning a Western road trip. Will they tie the current winning streak record held by the Buffalo Sabres in 2006 and make it 10 games undefeated? We will just have to wait and find out!
