CANADIENS
Montreal

SENATORS
Ottawa

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Shaw
Galchenyuk – Drouin – Byron
Hudon – Plekanec – Gallagher
Deslauriers – Froese – Carr
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Weber
Alzner – Petry
Jerabek – Schlemko
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Joe Morrow, Jacob De La Rose

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Al Montoya – concussion, Artturi Lehkonen – lower-body

Game Report

This game had most of the earmarks of one of the NHL’s premiere events. However this was a ‘Classic’ in name only.

It’s fair to say that the Senators and Canadiens are not good hockey teams. And Ottawa played well enough to beat a squad from Montreal that looked a fair bit worse on this night.

While no powerhouse themselves, the Senators moved with ease in the Canadiens end finding no impediments at all in getting to the net. Ottawa received such minimal resistance that they began taking liberties in initiating contact with Carey Price. It happened five times before the game was 20 minutes old.

Price was the last line of defence and proved impenetrable in the first period. On the other hand, the Canadiens could not get into the same area code as Ottawa goaltender Craig Anderson. They directed a few paltry shots at the Senators goal from well out in the first period which were routinely turned aside.

In fact, as Claude Julien pointed out in the post-game presser, the Canadiens did not register a shot from ‘between the dots’ until the third period. Montreal managed just a handful of scoring chances for the entire game. Meanwhile, Carey Price was the best player on the ice, forced to stand on his head to keep the game close.

The Habs spent the entire game chasing the play. Given the failure to win face-offs, Montreal started without the puck 71 per cent of the time.

With such poor possession numbers and a difficulty getting to scoring areas on the ice, the spotlight shone brightly on the few high-quality chances that they generated. Max Pacioretty had one of those chances in the third period but could not finish it.

Rather than focus solely on the missed opportunities, one must question the system that is creating so few.

~~~

▲    Carey Price

▼    Jonathan Drouin, Phillip Danault, Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Andrew Shaw,  Byron Froese, David Schlemko

1. Erik Karlsson  OTT
2. Carey Price  MTL
3. Jean-Gabriel Pageau  OTT

• “With Carey Price being Carey Price tonight, he gave us a chance after two periods. It’s a matter where you’re chasing the puck all night and losing the draws and you don’t get inside those dots to create more offence.”

Paul Byron

• “We just couldn’t get the puck back to our guys and try and create off that. Any time you’re forechecking the whole time it’s certainly tough to get the puck back and have the energy to go down and create offence.”

Max Pacioretty

• “We created absolutely nothing until we felt we needed to and we can’t wait for that late in the game.”

Carey Price

• “Collectively, we didn’t generate enough. They did a really good job of boxing up the middle of the ice and kept us from getting into those prime scoring areas.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com