CANADIENS
Montreal

2-3

RED WINGS
Detroit

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Galchenyuk – Weise
Eller – Plekanec – Byron
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Carr
Hudon – Flynn – Andrighetto[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Gilbert – Pateryn[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Tokarski
Condon

Scratches:  Jarred Tinordi, Nathan Beaulieu, Christian Thomas
Injured reserve:  Brendan Gallagher, Torrey Mitchell, Carey Price, Devante Smith-Pelly
Suspended: Zack Kassian

Game Report

With Carey Price in goal, as we have shown many times, each player in the lineup becomes better. But Price also helps to conceal errors and shortcomings. That goes for the coach too.

Much is made about Michel Therrien’s ability to insert a Dale Weise-like player at the right time to get results. But if Price wasn’t there to eliminate opposition threats, the coach’s ideas wouldn’t have time to come to fruition.

So if Therrien stubbornly ices the pair of Alex Galchenyuk and Max Pacioretty on the top line and Carey Price steals a win, no one is focusing on the lack of chemistry. But with just adequate goaltending being provided by the Canadiens backups, Therrien’s decisions are being more heavily scrutinized.

Often when teams go through a stretch when the injury bug has hit, coaches will try to maximize stability to lessen the impact. Therrien has done the opposite taking the opportunity to turn his lineup upside down. And even though he reunited the third line in this game, the cork was already out of the bottle.

And the losing streak is now at four.

With the Canadiens having difficulty scoring including a power-play that has completely dried up, each mistake at the other end of the ice is magnified. With Tom Gilbert off chasing a hit, an unfortunate turnover by Greg Pateryn proved to be the difference.  Dustin Tokarski was back to his battling self after a short stint with the IceCaps but there was the feeling that Price might have made the save.

The Habs are a team that is out of sync right now. The coach is playing mad scientist and some the team’s leaders — Tomas Plekanec, Max Pacioretty. P.K. Subban — aren’t leading the way right now. For Subban it is a repeat from last season where he was underwhelming for the first third of the season and then turned it up after Christmas.

Time for the coach to start icing established lines and for the vets to pick up the pace. Because right now, the guys from St. John’s are showing you up.

The Canadiens will return home for a Saturday night match against the Senators.

▲     Daniel Carr, Sven Andrighetto, Charles Hudon, Tomas Fleischmann, Andrei Markov

▼    P.K. Subban, Greg Pateryn, Tom Gilbert, Jeff Petry, Dale Weise, David Desharnais, Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Tomas Plekanec

1. Darren Helm  DET
2. Justin Abdelkader  DET
3. Petr Mrazek  DET

• “We took a really bad penalty for their tying goal and we turned the puck over on the winning goal. That’s the story of our game right now.”
• “It was our second game in 48 hours. The effort was there, but we did some things that we just can’t do. We took a bad penalty on the tying goal, then there was a bad giveaway on the winning goal. Those are things that we can’t let happen. We’re going through some tough times right now. There’s no denying it, but we have to continue keeping our heads up. It will make us a better team later on.”

Max Pacioretty

• “I don’t know what to say. It’s disappointing. Just not good enough.“

Tomas Plekanec

• “We’re just making mistakes at the wrong time. They’re little mistakes and little details, but they count big time. We’ve got to find a way to do those good things for all 60 minutes. It doesn’t matter when you allow those goals. You’ve just got to find a way to win those games. We’re doing a lot of the right things, but we’ve got to find a way to finish it off.“
• “We’re not happy about it. That’s one thing we talked about – we need to start scoring again. We’ve got to start scoring some ugly goals around the net, some goals like the Red Wings did against us off [Abdelkader’s] skate in the third period. We’ve got to play all 60 minutes, and then just find a way to score more goals. It’s hard to win with one or two goals every game.”

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill

• “I thought Darren (Helm) was the best player on the ice. I thought he was great from the drop of the puck. He’s got such get up and go, and he was impactful the whole night. Great job by him. He’s played real well here in the last eight, nine games. He’s been real good overall. It’s good for him to get rewarded with some goals. It always feels good to score. It looks like he’s really coming.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

#Habs Atlantic Division lead suddenly down to four points on Red Wings, who hold a game in hand. Things change quickly.

— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) December 11, 2015

Habs have 11 goals in last 6. Don't skewer me but time to go back to lines that started the season. This tinkering is unsettling for players

— Brian Wilde (@BWildeMTL) December 11, 2015

Petry cousins in da house tonight #GoHabsGo #allhabs pic.twitter.com/JDiYiHRJa7

— Teresa Petry Yochum (@TeresaYochum) December 11, 2015

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