CANADIENS
Montreal

CANUCKS
Vancouver

Game Notes:

Where’s the offense? Up until midway through the third period, the Canadiens had scored just one goal on the road trip in 177 minutes of play, by Tom Gilbert.  There was an abundance of perimeter play in Vancouver with the top two lines in particular looking out of sync.  The Habs committed 10 icings in the first 40 minutes of play. Until he scored the tying goal with 2:33 to play, Max Pacioretty and his linemate David Desharnais had been invisible.

Paging Kirk Muller. The Canadiens power-play stinks. After three feckless performances in this game, the Habs power-play is now 0-for-24 on the road this season. Despite special sessions at Brossard, adjustments made by assistant coaches Dan Lacroix and Clement Jodoin haven’t had any positive effect.  The obvious change is to give first wave power-play time to the Tomas Plekanec line with Alex Galchenyuk proving to be a top threat this season.

Comebacks start in goal. As P.K. Subban said post-game, it’s a good thing if the Canadiens are developing a reputation for their comebacks and resiliency. The primary reason that the Habs have been able to come back in games is that they are never too far down. In addition, the team is confident that they can take offensive chances with Carey Price in goal. Such was the case again in the third period in Vancouver.

Almost disciplined. Just when we were ready to credit the Canadiens with a disciplined effort, Tom Gilbert took a dumb penalty for interference in overtime. The Canucks scored on the resulting power-play.  Gilbert’s penalty was a pick play in the offensive zone.  The Canadiens bench was outraged that Vancouver committed two similar infractions while on the power-play that went uncalled.  Such was yet another night of wild inconsistency from the officiating crew. Most egregious was a late hit to the head by Alex Burrows on Alexei Emelin. No penalty was called but this is one that the league will be looking at with an eye towards supplementary discipline.

Soap opera. After benching Lars Eller for the third period against Calgary, coach Michel Therrien sent all the right signals that Eller would be a healthy scratch against Vancouver. When the game started, the Dane was in his familiar spot centering the third line. And Eller played very well. So the coach’s method, threatening a visit to the press box, worked?  The fact is that Eller didn’t play poorly in Calgary, he was directly responsible for generating the team’s only goal.  But once again the coach brought attention to himself.  Expect the moment to be referenced as a coaching success in press conferences in the week’s ahead.

I played 1200 games, have you? With much of Thursday’s discussion revolving around Lars Eller, TSN analyst Ray Ferraro took the opportunity to pile on offering the view that Eller is not a goal scorer.  It was unclear where Ferraro had developed the opinion whether it was his eye-witness vantage point in his home of Vancouver or the Toronto-centric TSN studio. When challenged by Habs fan, Ray childishly cited his service in the NHL. Completely lost on Ferraro is the fact that Eller is a playmaker and at this point lacks linemates who can finish.

Plus / Minus

▲   Carey Price, Brandon Prust, Dale Weise, Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller, Rene Bourque, Brendan Gallagher

▼   Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais, P.A. Parenteau, Tom Gilbert, P.K. Subban. Power-play

1.  Ryan Miller  VAN 
2.  Max Pacioretty  MTL
3.  Daniel Sedin  VAN

• “I like the way we competed tonight, that was our fourth game in six days with travel and we never gave up and gave ourselves a chance to win this hockey game.”
• On Alex Burrows hit to the head of Alexei Emelin, “We all saw the hit to the head and instead of having a power play of five minutes the puck is in your own net. Frustrating.”
• “[Emelin] passed all his tests and doctor said he was fine to go, so doctor decision. But that was a dirty hit to the head, so this is something we try to eliminate from our game.”

Max Pacioretty

• “The Canucks are a skilled bunch and they stretched us out pretty good. We made some good adjustments to counter-attack that. You can only take positives from that. It was definitely a fast-paced game. It reminded me of the playoffs out there.”

P.K. Subban

• “I thought we showed a lot of character battling back. To be honest, that’s exciting to see so early in the season, a team that even when we’re down we’re not out of it. I know that getting that type of reputation around the League means a lot.”

Dale Weise

• “We’ve got so much character on this team. We’re okay playing from behind. That’s going to be huge. We’re going to find to a way to get off to some good starts and score first and get some leads.”
• “We know how to play with a lead, so this is big for our to club to have the opportunity to come from behind and show that we have that belief. This is a resilient group. We don’t quit. We believe that we can come back. We’ve shown that. That’s a huge positive going forward.”

Canucks forward Henrik Sedin

• “You can tell why their record is where it is. They’ve got a really good team. They play fast. We battled. Our effort was top notch.”