CANADIENS
Montreal

BRUINS
Boston

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

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

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

Goaltenders:

Price
Condon

Scratches: Greg Pateryn, Jarred Tinordi, Paul Byron
Injured reserve:
Suspended: Zack Kassian

Game Report

The schedule-maker wasn’t exactly kind to the Canadiens to start the year with four road games, two against long-standing bitter rivals and one against a burgeoning rival. Fans haven’t yet been treated to seeing a team running on all cylinders but two wins to begin the season has

From the outset, Claude Julien’s game plan was clear: slow down the Canadiens. The Bruins were also looking to get under the skin of Habs players goading them into altercations. To their credit, the Canadiens played a disciplined game until the outcome was determined.

With Matt Beleskey in the box just 1:14 into the game for an illegal check to the head the reworked power-play took just 11 seconds to put Montreal on the board. Andrei Markov and Alex Galchenyuk created the scoring chances with tape-to-tape cross-ice passes. David Desharnais tooki a couple of whacks to put it past Tuukka Rask. The lateral movement missing from last year’s power-play had found its way into the playbook.

One of the sputtering cylinders in the first period (and in the season opener against the Leafs) was Alex Semin who saw the ice for just over two minutes in the frame. Once he equaled the effort of his linemates, Alex Galchenyuk and Lars Eller, the line was dominate. Lars Eller scored twice with assists going to his linemates.

At the end of the second the Habs held a 3-1 lead but were in control. The wheels fell off for the Bruins with a steady stream to the penalty box. Unfortunately the Canadiens thought it would be fun to resurrect the impotent 2014-15 power-play in the third with expected results.

Two of the Canadiens leaders looked out of sorts throughout the game but particularly on the power-play. Max Pacioretty turned the puck over regularly and P.K. Subban just isn’t right.

Subban may be dealing with an injury after being hit in the Toronto game by Leo Komarov. While Pacioretty has three points, two came on empty net goals and the other was a soft goal given up by Jonathan Bernier. He is showing signs of missing most of training camp and is regaining his timing.

Carey Price has been brilliant in his two starts. The Canadiens surrendered an own goal on Wednesday night against the Leafs. The shutout-breaker on Saturday followed a turnover by Desharnais when Matt Beleskey banked the puck in off Jeff Petry. The Bruins also picked up a late power-play goal.

Tomas Plekanec was 67 per cent at the faceoff dot which included going 5-for-5 vs Patrice Bergeron in the first period. Eller was just a shade behind Plekanec at 63 per cent. Plekanec registered his 500th NHL point with the empty-netter. TVA reported that contract discussions should begin soon between Marc Bergevin and Plekanec’s agent Rick Curran.

The road trip continues with a stop in Ottawa for a rare Sunday night contest against the Senators.

▲     Carey Price, Lars Eller, Alex Galchenyuk, Alex Semin, Andrei Markov, Tomas Plekanec

▼     P.K. Subban

1.  Lars Eller  MTL
2. Alex Galchenyuk  MTL
3.  Carey Price  MTL

• “I liked the way we stuck up for each other. Nothing new about the rivalry between the Habs and the Bruins, so we were ready for that.“
• “[Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller and Alex Semin] had a really good game. They moved the puck well, they were creative offensively and responsible without the puck. They offered up an excellent performance.”

Alex Galchenyuk

• “Preseason is always just a warm-up for the regular season. We felt we had it in the preseason, but this is different type of games. But at the end of the day, we knew it doesn’t matter preseason or regular season, we knew had a lot of skill on our line and it was just a matter of time when we figured things out and started using it. And today we did pretty well.“
• “The three of us have chemistry out there, but we can’t go into game and just rely on that. We’ve got to go. I think the difference for us was today we started competing a little bit more. We were winning those battles down low and we were moving our feet more. And then on top of that we started using our skill, which paid off in a positive way for us.”

Lars Eller

• “I was pretty confident that it was going to come at some point. We were scoring a lot before. We might not score every game, but we did a lot of good things and we got rewarded. That was nice. We played a little bit better than we did in Toronto. We were pretty effective when we had our chances. I think we could’ve even had a few more, so it was a good step in the right direction for the whole team I think.”

Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron

• “We were giving them too much room and teams like that are going to make you pay. Any chance they get they’re going to find a way to create something out of it, so we really have to bear down in our zone more.”

Bruins coach Claude Julien

• “We’re definitely young. We know why. There’s no doubt that played a part in our game tonight. We’ve got to get better in certain areas that we’re working on. Those young guys are going to get better if they keep playing and get some experience. We’re going through some growing pains.”