CANADIENS
Montreal

CAPITALS
Washington

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty- Plekanec – Gallagher
Galchenyuk – Eller – Weise
Fleischmann – De la Rose – Byron
Andrighetto – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov- Subban
Emelin – Pateryn
Bartley – Barberio
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Scrivens

Scratches:  Nathan Beaulieu, Lucas Lessio
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Daniel Carr, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry, David Desharnais, Tom Gilbert

Game Report

The Washington Capitals are the top team in the league and the Canadiens have been the worst since early December. At home, the Capitals have been almost unbeatable with just four losses all season long coming into Wednesday night’s game. Braden Holtby is having a Carey Price-like season.

So what were the odds of the offensively-challenged Canadiens scoring four AND chasing Holtby?

“Yeah. Like Bizarro Superman. Superman’s exact opposite, who lives in the backwards bizarro world. Up is Down. Down is Up.” — Jerry Seinfeld

Against one of the best offenses in the NHL, Greg Pateryn, who has been scratched 42 times this season, played a solid 21:38. Lars Eller led the Canadiens with seven shot attempts and played a key role on both of Alex Galchenyuk’s goals. Jacob De la Rose was on the ice for a key faceoff in the last minute of the game with the Habs protecting a one-goal lead.

So, given what we have seen from Michel Therrien the entire season, how do these types of decisions happen?

“It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat … It’s all been wrong.” — George Costanza

With certain favorites not available due to injury and with the Canadiens being intent on featuring players ahead of the trade deadline, choices are being made that don’t fit with Therrien’s regular coaching philosophy.  The bench boss is relying on Eller rather than David Desharnais.

“No, no, no, wait a minute, I always have tuna on toast. Nothing’s ever worked out for me with tuna on toast. I want the complete opposite of on toast. Chicken salad, on rye, untoasted … and a cup of tea.” — George Costanza

And the Canadiens are winning. Montreal has picked up five of six points in the past three games.

Unfortunately, it’s all too little, too late.. including Therrien’s forced transformation.

By this time next week, there are likely to be several changes. Eller, Galchenyuk, Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Weise have been mentioned in trade rumours this week.  Each one of them was involved in the scoring in Washington.

The Canadiens head back to Montreal to host the Maple Leafs on Saturday at the Bell Centre.

~~~

▲     Lars Eller, Andrei Markov, Alex Galchenyuk, Brendan Gallagher, Jacob De la Rose, Torrey Mitchell, Greg Pateryn

▼     Paul Byron, Max Pacioretty

1. Alex Galchenyuk  MTL
2. Jason Chimera  WSH
3. Brendan Gallagher  MTL

• “There’s a lot of times I thought we deserved a better result, but tonight the result was on our side. We played the best team in the League in their building. They’re really tough to play against, and the way that we came out gave us the confidence after the first period with a two-goal lead. That was important for us.”

Mike Condon

• “We’ve been saying it all along, we’ve got a good character group and we’re not giving up and we’re going to keep fighting until the very end. For everybody, it was a huge win.
• We’ve got five out of our last six points and we’ve just got to keep it going. It’s good to beat a team like that. That’s a very, very good team.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “We have confidence about the way we’re playing, and it’s a tough building to come into. It’s a pretty good accomplishment, what we did tonight. We get to enjoy it for a few hours, and then move on to the next one.”

Capitals coach Barry Trotz

• “Sometimes you have to pull your goaltender. It wasn’t [Holtby] on any of those goals. We couldn’t get it changed on our bench, the thought process. Sometimes trying to do that will give them a little shock. They realized they didn’t play well in front of him.“
• “We didn’t play a 200-foot game; we were more interested in chasing the game and not just keeping it at two and chip away. I thought we had way too many turnovers, breakaways, 2-on-1’s. That’s not winning hockey for us.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com