CANADIENS
Montreal

AVALANCHE
Colorado

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Eller – Galchenyuk – Semin
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Weise
Flynn – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Subban
Beaulieu – Petry
Gilbert – Pateryn[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Tokarski

Scratches: Jarred Tinordi, Alexei Emelin, Paul Byron
Injured reserve:  Carey Price
Suspended: Zack Kassian

Game Report

This game was exhibit No. 1 of how puck possession is more or less meaningless when facing a goalie who was on fire and shot selection is somewhat questionable.  It also didn’t help that the Canadiens own hot goalie was having an off night.

Mike Condon shouldn’t hang his head too low, he had company when it comes to players who didn’t bring their ‘A’ game to the rink. P.K. Subban was on the ice for four of the six Avalanche goals. The defence pairing of Nathan Beaulieu and Jeff Petry was a minus-2, as was each member of the Canadiens third line.

After being relegated to the press box for seven games, all eyes were on right-winger Alex Semin. While many were only too happy to be critical of Semin, the second line was much better with him aboard rather than the rotating cast of fourth-liners. Possession-wise, the trio of Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller and Semin dominated but couldn’t beat Colorado goalie Reto Berra.

For the first time this season, the Canadiens are not at the top of the NHL standings. The New York Rangers have taken over first place in the league powered by an eight game win streak.  In the last 10 games, the Habs are just 5-3-2.

From all appearances, Carey Price will not be returning to the lineup anytime soon so it will be up to the coach and current complement of players to solve the problems ahead of a busy week for the team.

The Canadiens play next on Monday as they host the Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre.

▲     Brendan Gallagher

▼     P.K. Subban, Nathan Beaulieu, Andrei Markov, Mike Condon, David Desharnais, Dale Weise, Tomas Fleischmann

1. Reto Berra   COL
2. Nathan MacKinnon   COL
3. Matt Duchene  COL

• “It was 4-1 after two periods but we had triple the shots. It was just one of those nights.“

Mike Condon

• “It happens. You’re going to make mistakes and have bad nights, so hopefully we’ll put this one behind us and be ready to go for the next one. It’s hockey, you’ve got to go out there and compete no matter what. It’s not about the last save or the last goal, it’s about the next one. I’ve got to give the guys a chance.“

Max Pacioretty

• “We liked our offensive zone time and that was definitely a bright spot of the game, but at 6-1 I don’t really want to be talking about positives because we left our D-men and goalies out to dry. We’re a defense-first team and our blown assignments tonight were the difference. We play again in two days and we’ve got to find ways to clean this up.”

P.K. Subban

• “Anybody can beat anybody on any night. And if you can’t execute your game plan to a T, especially when teams are coming into our barn knowing where we are in the standings, teams are aggressive, and they were aggressive right from the start.”
• “I’m not going to make excuses. I know that I can be better than that, and I’m not going point a finger at [Andrei Markov], because I thought he did a good job. With an optional skate [this morning] I should have been fresh, but I wasn’t sharp enough. I can say that because I know I’ll be better next game. As a leader on this team I’ve got to be a whole lot better for my teammates. It’s tough to come into the room after a period and try to get guys going when you aren’t doing the job yourself.”

Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon

• “It’s always fun to score. It put a pretty commanding lead on the game at the end of the first and I think that took a lot of energy out of them. They made it 3-1, and then we scored shorthanded, 4-1, so it was a top-to-bottom effort and it definitely feels very good.”

Avalanche coach Patrick Roy

• “[Reto Berra] was phenomenal. He was very, very good. It’s funny how it goes sometimes because the Canadiens dominated the first period and it was 3-0 for us. That doesn’t happen often, but you take it when it happens. I felt we played better in the second. Even though we only had three shots, I thought we defended better than we did in the first.“

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com