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RECAP | Blue Jackets – Canadiens: Habs Fall Short

Rick Stephens

Montreal Canadiens vs Columbus Blue Jackets Game Recap: Habs Line-up, Score, Statistics, Highlights, Post-game Interviews, NHL Three-Stars

FINAL | Game 54, Home Game 29 | Sunday February 2, 2020
Bell Centre, Montreal, QC

CANADIENS

Montreal

3-4

BLUE JACKETS

Columbus
(Photo by Eric Bolte / USA Today Sports)

Canadiens Lineup

Forward lines

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Ilya Kovalchuk  – Nick Suzuki – Joel Armia

Artturi Lehkonen – Max Domi – Nick Cousins 

Ryan Poehling – Nate Thompson – Dale Weise

Defence pairings

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Marco Scandella – Victor Mete

Goaltenders

Carey Price – Charlie Lindgren

Scratches

Jordan Weal

Injuries

Paul Byron, Jonathan Drouin

Game Report

The Blue Jackets are a very good, well-coached team. They are strong in the offensive zone, play an in-your-face but disciplined style and are well-structured defensively. Consequently, they have lost just two of their past 24 games in regulation.

And once they had a lead, Columbus choked the life out of the Canadiens.

Montreal was soft on the puck, they were sloppy in all zones and the game was peppered with mental mistakes. The Habs play with little attention to detail. It’s clear that the players are ignoring what the coach is preaching.

Phillip Danault continues to struggle defensively as he has done all season long. Danault was on the ice for all four Columbus goals, only saved from a minus-4 rating by Shea Weber’s last-minute goal.

Danault may reach a career high in points but his defensive game has been a major disappointment. And that’s the part of his game at which he is expected to excel.

No matter though. Claude Julien had Ryan Poehling in the lineup to punish today. Will he be the next prospect to be dispatched to Laval?

Tomas Tatar scored his 20th goal of the season. That’s the sixth consecutive season that he has reached the 20-goal plateau. However, Tatar was guilty of a turnover on the Blue Jackets second goal.

Montreal is eight back with just 28 games left. They are barely registering a blip on the playoff chances meter. The Canadiens must win at least 20 of their remaining games to be in the conversation.

The Canadiens are back on the ice at 10:30 am. on Monday morning to prepare for their matchup with the Devils on Tuesday in New Jersey.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Artturi Lehkonen, Nick Suzuki 

▼  Phillip Danault, Victor Mete, Nate Thompson, Dale Weise, Ben Chiarot   

The Numbers

 Game Statistics 
CANADIENS   BLUE JACKETS
30 Shots 27
43 Face-off % 57
0-for-2 Power Play 0-for-2
6 Penalty Minutes 6
30 Hits 22
65 Corsi For 36
 Scoring Summary
 FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
 Canadiens (24-23-7) 0 1 2 – – 3
 Blue Jackets (28-16-9) 1 2 1 – – 4
Scorers Goalies
  • MTL: Tatar (20), Domi (13), Weber (13) 
  • CBJ: Gavrikov (5), Dubois (16), Dubois (17), Nyqvist (12)
  • MTL: Price (L) 22-18-4
  • CBJ: Merzlikins (W) 10-6-3

Stars of the Game

 NHL Official Three Stars
  1. Pierre-Luc Dubois  CBJ
  2. Seth Jones  CBJ
  3. Tomas Tatar  MTL

Watch

 Video Highlights 

What Did They Say?

 Post-game Quotes
Claude Julien  
  • “The game today, I don’t think we got outplayed. I think it was a tight game. The difference was the mistakes. We made a few mistakes that ended up in the back of our net.”
  • “It’s a gritty team. It’s as simple as that. They play hard, they play in your face. We tried to counter that our own way and I thought we did to a certain extent. But at the end of the night, it’s goals for and against that count and they scored more than we did.”
  • “Every game is different. I said it before the game; we were playing a very different team than the one we played yesterday. In the second half of the first period, they started to win their battles along the boards, and then they scored the first goal.”
Ben Chiarot
  • “It’s frustration, especially at this point of the season when we’re desperate for wins. We’re trying to keep that good feeling in the room and keep building these wins. You got to be able to win those tight-checking games against a team like Columbus.”
  • “You know that’s playoff-style hockey and I think that’s what you’re going to see for the next, whatever it is, 29 games that we got left. That’s the intensity and that’s the style of hockey that’s going to win. So we got to get used to it and we got to get good at it.”
Shea Weber
  • “We kept shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

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