CANADIENS
Montreal

SABRES
Buffalo

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Galchenyuk – Plekanec – Gallagher
Pacioretty – Desharnais – Andrighetto
Fleischmann – Eller – Weise
Byron – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov- Subban
Barberio – Gilbert
Emelin – Pateryn[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Scrivens
Condon

Scratches: Nathan Beaulieu, Jacob De la Rose
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Daniel Carr, Lucas Lessio, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry

Game Report

After a three-game winning streak, the Habs tanknation folks were rather quiet. Fans were even jumping back on the playoff bandwagon particularly after an unexpected win against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Fans wondered, were the Canadiens back to the winning formula that brought them to a 9-0-0 start?

Well, paraphrasing the words of Estelle Costanza, “We’ve been duped!”

A loss to the cellar dwelling Buffalo Sabres effectively ends the Habs push to the playoffs. While Montreal is just five points back of the Pittsburgh Penguins, presently holding the last playoff spot in the East, the Pens have one game in hand. There are also three other teams — the Hurricanes, Flyers and Devils — between the Habs and the Penguins.

Estelle’s comment not only applies not only to the team but also to a player. Not Donna Chang, but Ben Scrivens.

Some fans were hoping that Scrivens had found his game and could carry the Habs to a playoff berth. As mentioned in our last Recap, Scrivens was riding a “confidence wave born out of the revenge game against the Oilers.” I predicted that the bubble was due to burst and it did on Friday night.

The Sabres had seven shots on goal in the first period but produced only two scoring chances. And they scored twice. Scrivens was yanked just 1:28 into the second period after giving up a third goal to Buffalo on the only shot he faced in the period. Allowing three goals on eight shots computes to a save percentage of .625.

Perhaps this game can be quickly summarized by adding the save percentage of the other two goalies: .846 for Mike Condon and .867 for Chad Johnson in the Buffalo goal.  It was one of those nights.

But let’s not hang the loss completely on goaltending. There was plenty of blame to go around. The silver lining is that the Canadiens should have a clear picture of the dead wood. And with the trade deadline just around the corner let’s hope that Marc Bergevin is an active seller.

And let’s not fall into the trap that certain players are untradeable. We have witnessed that a good GM can move just about anyone (remember John Scott?)

So David Desharnais should lead the list for rather obvious reasons. He has ceased to be a NHL-caliber player. Add soon-to-be unrestricted free agents Dale Weise, Tomas Fleischmann, Tom Gilbert and restricted free agent Devante Smith-Pelly.

Others will have opinions about other dispensible players but there should be no debate about this initial list.

The Canadiens now have put together three straight wins picking up enough points to provide a glimmer of hope, but realistically, does little to guarantee that hockey will be played at the Bell Centre at the end of April.

The Habs continue the three-game road trip in Arizona on Monday when they face the Coyotes.

~~~

▲     Sven Andrighetto, Brendan Gallagher, Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller

▼     Mark Barberio, Tom Gilbert, Dale Weise, Tomas Fleischmann, Ben Scrivens, Mike Condon

1. Marcus Foligno  BUF
2. Evander Kane  BUF
3. Sven Andrighetto  MTL

• “It was a tough night for the goalies. A tough night.”

Max Pacioretty

• “We had opportunities the whole game to score goals. We scored four, it just seemed like the puck wouldn’t bounce at the end there. A couple of posts, a couple bounced through the crease behind the goalie. I really liked the way we played other than giving up the five goals on some errors. I don’t think it’s a bad game. I think it’s just a couple of lapses that gave them some goals.”
• “Sven is like a water bug. He moves well. He can make plays and it was really nice playing with him. I feel like our line can do some good stuff if we keep playing like that. We definitely had a lot of opportunities to tie that game in the third and he was a big reason for that.”

P.K. Subban

• “There’s a minute left in the game at that point, and I felt we had a chance to try to tie it up. We were pushing pretty good there, so obviously I’m upset about it (the puck hitting the linesman.) I don’t know. I don’t know if we deserve an explanation for it or not, but I’d like to know what we’re supposed to do there. That’s the game, right? The game’s over once they score there and they’re up by two.”
• “It’s tough, a tough game for us. Obviously, we’d like to have a better result, but at the same token, I felt we did a lot of things well. We definitely scored enough goals to win the hockey game; just didn’t happen for us.”

Sabres coach Dan Bylsma

• “We were kind of guessing on the bench what Marcus (Foligno) was going to do. In practice sometimes, he likes to put on a nice deke move. He came in the showed the shot, which was a great shot coming in, going over his glove.”
• “There’s always enjoyment in winning a game. This group, we’ve gotten away in the last two games from where we need to play and how to play. We’ve played some hard-fought games and not gotten a win. It might not be the prettiest game. It certainly wasn’t a Picasso. In the third there as well, we got some tense moments but battled hard for the win.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com