CANADIENS
Montreal

PANTHERS
Florida

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Galchenyuk – Gallagher
Eller – Plekanec – Mitchell
Byron – Desharnais – Andrighetto
Danault – McCarron – Carr[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Pateryn
Emelin – Lernout
Hanley – Dietz
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Lindgren

Scratches:  Nathan Beaulieu, Jacob De la Rose, Stefan Matteau, Mike Brown, Lucas Lessio, Mark Barberio, Victor Bartley, P.K. Subban (upper-body)
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry, Tom Gilbert

Game Report

With 12 minutes gone in the second period, the Canadiens had a 3-0 lead. Fans had turned their attention towards musing about starting next season with a real first line and mocking the Panthers franchise about empty seats in the BB&T Center. Broadcasters had a stopwatch on Mike Condon’s shutout streak.

The home team hadn’t played well, much like the Lightning a few nights earlier.  But then the man behind the Panthers bench made a few adjustments.  As Eric Engels noted, “The second (coach Gerard) Gallant sees (David) Desharnais line out with (Joel) Hanley and (Darren) Dietz, (Jaromir) Jagr line flies onto the ice.”

At the 13:04 mark of the middle frame, Michel Therrien thought it was a good idea to send out the Desharnais line (Desharnais, Paul Byron, Sven Andrighetto) to take a defensive zone faceoff. Gallant countered with the Barkov line (Aleksander Barkov, Jaromir Jagr, Jonathan Huberdeau.) Barkov won the faceoff and nine seconds later Jagr had a Panther goal to begin the comeback.

Condon’s shutout streak was over at 116:53. And the Canadiens were down to five defenceman with Brett Lernout suffering an undisclosed injury.

As the Habs continued to lose control of the game, Michel Therrien made no significant adjustments. As Jaromir Jagr noted after the game, this made it easy for the Panthers.

Gallant continued to exploit matchups wearing down the undermanned Habs. The undersized third line was being trampled by the Panthers. Their Corsi numbers were dismal: Desharnais 6-14, Byron 5-15, Andrighetto 6-17.

Post-game even Michel Therrien conceded, “They got size, they’re strong on the puck, they dominate the game. Pretty simple.”

Not quite that simple. The Panthers have a coach who will get consideration for the Jack Adams Award. They also have a general manager who has earned the contract extension he signed in January.

Dale Tallon has built a team around two big, skilled centres in Barkov and Nick Bjugstad.  This team can score and they are stingy on the back end. And they have a smart coach who can adjust and get the most out of his roster.

The Canadiens will face the Panthers again in Montreal on Tuesday in the third last game of the season.

~~~

▲     Brendan Gallagher, Lars Eller, Torrey Mitchell

▼     David Desharnais, Paul Byron, Sven Andrighetto

1. Aleksander Barkov  FLA
2. Jonathan Huberdeau  FLA
3. Jaromir Jagr  FLA

• “Losing another defenseman was definitely taxing on our group. Everything was under control, but with the loss of (Brett) Lernout and then (Greg) Pateryn for a short time, we asked a lot of our defensemen. Even our veterans like (Andrei) Markov and (Alexei) Emelin played way too many minutes. We lost some energy because of that. Tonight’s circumstances made things a little more difficult, for sure.“

Brendan Gallagher

• “[Jagr, Barkov and Huberdeau] are good. We’ve played against good players before, but their line, it seems like every time we play them they find a way to contribute and produce. It’s two pretty young kids playing with Jagr, and I’m sure they’re learning a lot from him. So they’re definitely a challenging line to play against, but at the same time, you can’t be happy when you give a line that much success.“

Greg Pateryn

• “That top line, they’re very, very good, and they got one, and it just seemed like they had the momentum after that and we never bounced back.”

Panthers forward Jaromir Jagr

• “I think Montreal made it a little bit easy for us; they just kept playing the same way, so we felt like we were going to have the opportunity to score. I’m not saying it was a matter of time, but we had some scoring chances, plus we didn’t play well at all for the first half of the game.”

Panthers coach Gerard Gallant

• “It looked like we didn’t think it was a game till 8 o’clock, so we woke up and started playing real well. We didn’t show up the first half. We didn’t play well enough, didn’t compete well enough. Then, the second half of the game, that (top) line led us, but the other lines were good, too.”
• “We’re fortunate to get the two points. It showed a lot of character and a lot of grit.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com