CANADIENS
Montreal

RANGERS
New York

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Drouin – Domi – Hudon
Lehkonen – Kotkaniemi – Armia
Deslauriers – Peca – Shaw
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Petry
Reilly – Juulsen
Ouellet – Mete

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Scherbak, Alzner

Injuries

Weber, Schlemko, Plekanec, Byron

Game Report 

Quick starts have been the hallmark of the Canadiens success so far in this season. Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist gave up a soft goal just 23 seconds into the game with Tomas Tatar netting his fourth of the year.

Montreal maintained the upper hand for much of the period. Carey Price was locked in making brilliant saves when his teammates faltered in front of him.

With just over four minutes left in the period, Jonathan Drouin committed a turnover in the neutral zone. And when the puck came back to him, he turned it over again. Drouin then decided to play spectator, shadowing but not engaging Chris Kreider who tied the game before the period ended.

It wasn’t the last time Drouin would take centre stage at MSG, for all the wrong reasons.

Tatar went to work again early in the second period tipping a shot by Phil Danault past Danault. Less than two minutes later, Max Domi gave the Habs a two-goal lead with a power-play goal.

Despite holding an early 3-1 lead in the second period, Montreal was being outplayed, losing battles all over the ice. The Rangers were quicker to pucks and had a higher compete level. Carey Price was outstanding giving his team a chance to win.

Before the period ended, the Rangers scored just as a penalty to Phillip Danault expired to cut the deficit to one. Habs fans justifiably complained about questionable calls, but the bottom line is that Montreal was undisciplined taking too many dumb penalties.

The third period belonged to Jonathan Drouin. Shockingly, he was instrumental in each of the Rangers three goals in the final frame. Drouin played a lazy, selfish and destructive game finishing a minus-4. This loss lays primarily at his feet.

In the words of Brian Wilde, “[Drouin] was a mess defensively tonight. I don’t think I have seen a worse defensive game from a forward in a decade.”

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▲  Tomas Tatar, Carey Price, Artturi Lehkonen, Joel Armia

▼▼  Jonathan Drouin  

▼  Nicolas Deslauriers, Matthew Peca, Jeff Petry, Jordie Benn, Charles Hudon, Andrew Shaw, Noah Juulsen, Mike Reilly

1. Kevin Hayes  NYR
2. Neal Pionk  NYR
3. Tomas Tatar  MTL

• “Those things happen with every team and a lot of times it’s a player not being sharp and not taking the right person or we’re not watching that the person he’s supposed to take is coming off or skating by the bench. Everyone has to be clear on who he’s supposed to take before they even get to the bench and those penalties are unnecessary and we have to be better in that area.”
• “There’s always a little bit of fatigue, but we play two in two a lot in the season and you can’t use that as an excuse. We had a 3-1 lead so we weren’t that tired. At the end of the day, we made a lot of individual mistakes, mental mistakes. (The) loss was self-inflicted.”

Tomas Tatar

• “I think most of the game, we played the way we wanted to. […] We have to keep our composure and play our game through 60 minutes.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com