FINAL/OT | Round 3, Game 4 | Sunday June 20, 2021

Series tied 2-2

Canadiens Lineup

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Cole Caufield

Artturi Lehkonen – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

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

Tomas Tatar, Michael Frolik, Charlie Lindgren, Brett Kulak, Alexander Romanov

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

Jonathan Drouin (undisclosed), Jake Evans (concussion)

Dominique Ducharme

Game Report

The Canadiens have to be happy with the way they played game 4, particularly on the defensive side, for the vast majority of the game. This followed a weak game 3 performance where the Golden Knights dominated play for 40 minutes. But there were a lot of positives to take away from the Sunday night contest.

The frustrating part for Montreal is that they played well but came away without a victory. How much better can they play?

A 3-1 series lead going back to Nevada would have energized the Habs. And now we have a best of three series with potentially two of the games taking place in Las Vegas where line matching and changes will be tougher for the Habs. 

There are no moral victories, this is a results oriented business. The Canadiens have to find additional ways to generate a win starting with creating more second and third chance scoring opportunities. Too often, it has been one-and-done in the playoffs in the offensive zone.

Officiating is atrocious

Officiating isn’t a topic that we typically address in this column, but given the degree of its incompetence for the past two games, it has rightly earned a mention. It was obvious to fans of many stripes, to broadcasters and analysts and to former players that the officials blatantly impacted the outcome of the game tonight. 

After the debacle of game 3, Gary Bettman (who attended the game) had no choice but to replace referees Chris Lee and Dan O’Rourke for game 4. Rather than protect the integrity of the game, Lee and O’Rourke were allowed to do an even worse job in Sunday night’s game. Whether it’s a matter of incompetence or corruption, the NHL has a serious problem.

It’s is astonishing that Lee and O’Rourke are considered, by the league, two of the best referees in the NHL and worthy of officiating a Stanley Cup semi-final playoff game.

Up Next

Game 4 was a huge missed opportunity for the Canadiens. The two teams will head to Las Vegas to play game 5 on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena.

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