CANADIENS
Montreal

7-4

JETS
Winnipeg

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Radulov
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Byron
Flynn – Mitchell – Andrighetto
Carr – McCarron – Scherbak
[/one_half]

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

Goaltenders

Montoya
Price

Scratches

Bobby Farnham, Chris Terry, Zach Redmond

Injured Reserve

Alex Galchenyuk (knee), David Desharnais (knee), Greg Pateryn (ankle), Andrew Shaw (concussion), Andrei Markov (lower body)

Game Report

Maybe it’s better not to take too much away from this game. There were defensive lapses from both teams, none of the three goaltenders were stellar and the game was generally played very sloppily.

The two goaltenders who finished the game, Al Montoya and Michael Hutchinson, each gave up four goals. Nathan Beaulieu’s play was a train wreck in the first period directly leading to the first two goals by Winnipeg. And there were dumb penalties taken by Phillip Danault and Torrey Mitchell.

But the Canadiens took advantage of a Winnipeg team who came out lifeless and flat-footed. Montreal skated freely using the neutral zone to attack the Jets with speed, particularly in the second period. Shots in the middle stanza were 10-3 for the Habs.

Artturi Lehkonen was the best player in white on this night. He continues to play a strong game at both ends of the ice, creates scoring chances and goes to the front of the net. Lehkonen had two goals and an assist tonight.

Sven Andrighetto looked like an NHL player tonight. He made a superb pass to Brian Flynn for the Canadiens second goal. And Andrighetto scored a big goal in the first minute of the second period.

Danault had a two-goal night with his second of the game being of the highlight reel variety. The Jets left Danault untouched as he went coast to coast.

Shea Weber had two assists and led the team with four blocked shots in 25 minutes of play. Weber and Alexei Emelin combined for a plus-6 rating. 

The Canadiens will have to be better, much better in all areas of the ice when they play the Wild on Thursday night.

~~~

▲     Artturi Lehkonen, Sven Andrighetto, Phillip Danault, Shea Weber, Alexei Emelin

▼     Nathan Beaulieu, Ryan Johnston

1.  Phillip Danault  MTL
2.  Artturi Lehkonen  MTL
3.  Mark Scheifele  WPG

Jeff Petry

• “We had everybody going — we had four lines rolling — and that’s important, especially on the road. When you have the confidence to put all four lines out there in any situation, it gets the tempo of the game up and we were able to play with a lot of pace tonight.”

Al Montoya

• “Any time your team scores seven, you want to make sure you’re on the winning side of it. It was an up and down kind of game — we knew they had the speed — but I think we did a heck of a job keeping them in front of us all night. Hats off to the guys who put a bunch in the net and let us come out with a W.”

Jets head coach Paul Maurice

• “We were horse shit from the drop of that first puck right through to the very end.”
•  “We’ll deal with it. We’re not sweeping this under the rug. We’ll make sure that we appreciate the value of playing in the National Hockey League and playing in a game at home, the cost that every NHL game demands and the willingness to pay that price.”
•  “There’s no reason for that tonight. We don’t play like that. The games that we’re beat, we don’t play like that.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Phillip Danault scoring a gorgeous goal flying end to end with a snipe to finish #Habs pic.twitter.com/cln1GtLlZf

— Shayne Pasquino (@shaynepasquino) January 12, 2017

Great start for #Habs after a sluggish effort v Caps at home Monday… or is this more about what #Jets aren't doing?

— Douglas Gelevan (@DGelevan) January 12, 2017

@AllHabs first Habs game for my boy and going great so far! pic.twitter.com/pwDDUAUHtT

— Justin Fingas (@94Bubs) January 12, 2017

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