CANADIENS
Montreal

FLYERS
Philadelphia

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Byron – Hudon
Galchenyuk – Drouin – Scherbak
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Gallagher
Deslauriers – Froese – L. Shaw
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Alzner – Petry
Mete – Schlemko
Morrow – Benn
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Jacob De La Rose, Daniel Carr, Jakub Jerabek

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body, Phillip Danault – concussion, Andrew Shaw – lower-body

Game Report 

Jonathan Drouin was a minus-3 to move to a season-long ranking of minus-27. It’s clear to most fans that the plus-minus statistic isn’t the best measure of a player but it isn’t meaningless either.

Let’s dig down a bit. You can ignore the third strike if you wish, as Drouin was on the ice for Ivan Provorov’s empty-net goal. But the other two goals against were key and both came from the stick of Travis Konecny against the Drouin line.

Tomas Plekanec, with linemates Brendan Gallagher and Artturi Lehkonen, did a good job of keeping the Flyers top line in check in the first period. Having the last change, Philadelphia head coach Dave Hakstol ensured that Konecny, Claude Giroux and Sean Courturier would not have to face Plekanec and crew from the second period on. 

It took just 42 seconds into the middle frame to expose the defensive weakness of Drouin. And it happened again early in the third period with Konecny getting his second goal of the game. With Drouin being a non-factor offensively 5-on-5 and struggling defensively, the Canadiens weren’t in this contest.

Carey Price kept the game close with most of the Canadiens scoring chances coming from the Plekanec line. Uncharacteristically, Plekanec ran into penalty trouble with three minors on the night. The Flyers cashed in on two of their four opportunities, when Plekanec and Byron Froese were in the box.

The Canadiens head home to host Alexei Emelin, Yannick Weber and the Nashville Predators on Saturday night.

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▲  Artturi Lehkonen, Carey Price, Jeff Petry, Nikita Scherbak, Brendan Gallagher

▼  Paul Byron, Charles Hudon, Jonathan Drouin, Alex Galchenyuk, penalty-kill

1. Claude Giroux  PHI
2. Travis Konecny  PHI
3. Shayne Gostisbehere  PHI

• “Winning battles is one of our challenges. We’ve talked about that since the beginning of the year. We’ve got a little bit better, but we have to be better than that. You bring in guys like (Nikita) Scherbak who have a little more size, and you hope you’re going to win more battles. It’s about being smart but it also helps to be big and strong.”
• “Those penalties hurt us. Their power play seemed to be going well tonight and our penalty kill wasn’t good enough, so that really hurt us.”
• “We made mistakes, especially on special teams. We could have been better short-handed. There’s still something missing and there are games where a mistake here and there becomes costly. We have to limit those mistakes and correct them… It takes a lot to win on the road.”

Max Pacioretty

• “We know they have a lethal power play. A lot of their top offensive guys make a living off the power play. I think once they get a point or get some good looks, they’re going to start feeling it at even-strength. That’s kind of what happened.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com