CANADIENS
Montreal

DEVILS
New Jersey

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Radulov
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Byron
Andrighetto – Galchenyuk – Shaw
De La Rose – Mitchell – Flynn
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Beaulieu – Petry
Barberio – Redmond
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Montoya
Price

Scratches

Daniel Carr, Ryan Johnston

Injured Reserve

David Desharnais (knee), Greg Pateryn (ankle), Andrei Markov (lower body)

Game Report

Coming into the game, the Canadiens were tasked with improving their 5-on-5 play, increasing their shots on goal, boosting their goal scoring, drawing more penalties and continuing to improve a porous penalty-kill. Lining up against the 24th place team in the league, particularly with their the Devils struggling to create offence, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check off some of the boxes. A bonus: New Jersey started their backup goalie, Keith Kincaid.

Coach Michel Therrien made two lineup adjustments for this game. Alex Galchenyuk was dropped to the third line being replaced as first line centre by Phillip Danault. Therrien explained that Galchenyuk’s timing was off and he was not showing the same level of play as when he was injured.

After Nathan Beaulieu’s demotion to the third pairing last game, he was reunited with Jeff Petry. Beaulieu had struggled mightily on the second pairing for some time. Mark Barberio had filled in admirably but just wasn’t more than a temporary solution.

It’s fair to say that the Canadiens made some progress on their to-do list on Friday night. They managed more than 20 shots, drew seven penalties and scored more than one goal.

While their 5-on-5 play was improved — the Habs owned the neutral zone — they still failed to create many grade ‘A’ chances or score at even strength. All three goals were scored on the power-play.

Alex Galchenyuk made a strong case for returning to the top line with Alexander Radulov and Max Pacioretty on the top line at even strength. The trio were on the ice for all three goals on the power-play with Galchenyuk and Radulov tallying three points each.

Al Montoya wasn’t great — he surrendered a soft goal — but didn’t need to be. Montoya faced just three shots in the first 33 minutes of play (allowing a goal on one of those shots.) The Devils added 14 shots in the final 27 minutes of the game which posed little difficulty for the Canadiens backup.

So what’s the conclusion on those check boxes?

The Devils went 0-for-2 on the power-play. Habs penalty-kill was perfect on the night. Jacob De La Rose deserves credit for what he’s brought to this unit since the call-up. ✓

Three goals scored. ✓ 26 shots on goal.  ✓ Drew seven penalties. ✓

As far as improved even-strength play, let’s say that the Canadiens are halfway to a check mark. They did a superb job of controlling neutral zone play effectively disrupting rushes by the Devils and causing them to take penalties. Montreal still must do a better job creating high danger scoring chances, particularly as that will become more difficult against tougher competition.

Are the Canadiens back on track or was this simply getting an expected win against the Devils? We may have a better answer after the Saturday night home game against the Sabres.

~~~

▲     Alex Galchenyuk, Alexander Radulov, Max Pacioretty, Alexei Emelin, Shea Weber, Jacob De La Rose

▼     Paul Byron

1.  Alex Galchenyuk  MTL
2.  Alexander Radulov  MTL
3.  Shea Weber  MTL

• “I expected a good effort from our team and that’s exactly what we got. We put a lot of pressure on them at 5-on-5 and our power play was very good tonight. It was a great team effort. All our lines performed well, the defense was exceptional, and we got good goaltending.”

Alex Galchenyuk

• “We’ve got to find a way to create offense. It hasn’t been there the last two games. I’m not sure why. We have to feel confident with the puck and make plays when they’re there. It seems like we’re not making those plays and the result is not getting many opportunities.”
• “It’s funny because I think such a big deal was made of if I lost my game and stuff like that, but I knew I could go out there and just play my game. Last game, we didn’t get a lot of scoring opportunities and obviously as a team we weren’t satisfied with that. We knew we were going to bounce back. I think everybody from the start was going to the net. We worked on the power play a lot and it definitely paid off. It sealed the game for us.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com