CANADIENS
Montreal

BLUES
St. Louis

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
Emelin – Petry
Beaulieu – Gilbert[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Price
Condon

Scratches: Greg Pateryn, Jarred Tinordi, Paul Byron
Injured reserve:
Suspended: Zack Kassian

Game Report

In the previous recap, we discussed how the Canadiens had passed every test this season. But there’s no doubt that the St. Louis Blues presented the most serious challenge to date.

Not only did the Blues enter the game with the league’s second best record but being a big, skilled Western-conference team, the Canadiens didn’t match up well.. on paper.

The Blues did everything in the first period to live up to the description dominating the Canadiens with an aggressive forecheck and relentless puck pursuit. Montreal looked slow and was sloppy in their play.

With his team struggling Carey Price stood tall making multiple sensational saves. Price carried the club until the final 93 seconds of the period when Max Pacioretty and Tomas Plekanec combined for the opening goal.

Early in the second period Alex Semin was rewarded for shooting as his wrister beat Jake Allen with Lars Eller providing the screen. It was Semin’s first goal as a Canadien saying after the game that he followed his coaches’ direction to shoot more. He was due.

With a two goal lead the Canadiens righted the ship and used their speed and dump outs to wear down the Blues. While Allen played well, he was no match for Price who was brilliant making 38 saves for his second shutout of the season.

St. Louis won the possession game and also outhit the Habs 46-25. But they had no answer for Price. Vladimir Tarasenko, named the NHL’s third star of the week, was held pointless for the first time this season. Tarasenko led the Blues with six shots on goal.

This team is for real passing every test including three straight wins against teams expected to finish near the top of the standings: Rangers, Red Wings and Blues. During that three game stretch, Price gave up just one goal, total.

The next test for the Canadiens will be to notch a victory against a team who they should beat but proved to be a nemesis last season. The Habs head to Buffalo for a match against the Sabres on Friday night.

▲▲ Carey Price

▲     Max Pacioretty, Tomas Plekanec, Lars Eller, Alex Semin, Alex Galchenyuk, Alexei Emelin, Andrei Markov, P.K. Subban, Torrey Mitchell

▼

1. Carey Price  MTL
2. Max Pacioretty  MTL
3. Torrey Mitchell  MTL

• “The power play was very good tonight. We scored two big goals thanks to it.  We had a chance to work on things this morning, and it was nice to get back to basics. Drawing up Xs and Os is one thing, but actually getting to practice them is another. The guys applied everything we had discussed this morning — attacking the net and putting shots on goal — and the result was the one we were looking for.“
• “We see one game at a time. It’s like when I’m driving my car, I don’t look in my mirror [to see] what’s going on in the back. I’m watching ahead. So for me, the most important thing was [Tuesday], and now the focus is going to be in Buffalo.”

Carey Price

• “They’re definitely a big, heavy West Coast team and we just used our speed appropriately when we could. We came out of the gate slow, but we rallied and played a very solid game afterwards.“

Max Pacioretty

• “Just like the other games, we picked up our intensity as the game went on.”
• “That’s a different team than we’ve seen this year. They’re a big team, they’re a physical team, and we haven’t played that style yet, but what I really liked about our team is we didn’t get caught up in the extra stuff. As soon as we went up, it seemed like they wanted to try and drag us down and maybe get us to take one or play 4-on-4, but that’s good discipline by our group not to get caught up in that and play whistle to whistle.“

Blues coach Ken Hitchcock

• “This is a well-coached, disciplined, play-the-game-the-right-way team; they’re going to be a bear all year for everybody.“
• “Carey Price is just on a whole other level.”
• “The game turned on the second goal. We gave it a big push early, didn’t get the lead and they were able to play their flip game when it was 2-0. They just started to flip pucks out and try to take the energy out of us. We kept counter-attacking, but they were content with just flipping it out. The second goal gave them the breath they needed. At one time I think the chances were 10- or 11-2. Their goalie stood tall. [Carey Price] made some great saves early in the game when we were really pushing.”