CANADIENS
Montreal

CANUCKS
Vancouver

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

Apparently the hockey gods believe that the Canadiens didn’t need another entry in the record book. While the Canucks scored five goals in this game, only one could be described as ‘clean.’

It was Vancouver’s third goal. David Desharnais lost the faceoff in his own zone to Jared McCann. Desharnais committed a second sin on the play by not covering the Canuck’s fourth line centre. Brandon Prust fed the puck to McCann who was all alone in the slot.

This goal was the exception following multiple failures by Desharnais. The rest were truly odd.

The opening goal was scored after Carey Price made a glove save but the puck rolled down his back and the Canucks were first on the loose puck. Nathan Beaulieu deflected a shot for Vancouver’s second goal.  Radim Vrbata batted a puck out of mid-air after it deflected off Brian Flynn’s stick for goal number four.

With less than 10 minutes to play in the game, the much-maligned Alex Semin was skating back hard on the back check. After skating around Canadiens defenceman Jeff Petry, Canucks fourth-liner Derek Dorsett slid the puck towards the net that banked off Semin and into the net for the fifth Canucks goal.  Another example of bad puck luck.

Then there was Petry’s stick snapping when he had a clear chance.

Michel Therrien called it a “weird game.”

Weird indeed, but could the loss play well into Therrien’s hand?

A popular bit from comedian Louis C.K. is “Of course… but maybe?”

It came to mind when, during they game, I overheard someone say, ‘Therrien is coaching like he doesn’t want to win.”

Did Therrien want to win this game to tie the NHL record for consecutive wins from the start of the season? Of course, he did! But maybe, this loss, particularly by a wide margin, isn’t the worst thing in the eyes of the coach. He is now able to reign in any bad habits that have been developing over the past few games and make personnel changes to his lineup.

It was a good start to the night for former Hab Brandon Prust with two first-period assists. But Prust hit a rut near the boards causing his ankle to buckle ending his night.

It was the first home win for the Canucks after setting a franchise record of their own: five home losses to begin the season.

Good fortune was not on the side of the Canadiens in this game. But neither did they deserve to win. Vancouver goaltender Ryan Miller was rarely challenged with the Habs offense resembling the 2014-15 edition of the club.

Some of Therrien’s decisions had fans asking whether the coach had regressed to his familiar ways from last season. Despite a rough outing for the Habs third line centre, Desharnais received the second-most ice-time for forwards. Desharnais was the Canadiens player who gave up the most opposition scoring chances.

Canucks rookie Jake Virtanen had seven hits. The Canadiens had just nine hits from the entire team.

Ahead of Thursday’s game against the Oilers, it is up to coach Therrien and his staff to guide his team to return to the puck pressure, possession team that started the season. At 9-1-0, the Canadiens are off to a good start, but just one win ahead of the 8-2-0 record from the same point last year.

▲     Torrey Mitchell, Devante Smith-Pelly, Brian Flynn

▼     David Desharnais, Nathan Beaulieu, Michel Therrien

1. Jared McCann  VAN
2. Ryan Miller  VAN
3. Derek Dorsett  VAN

• “It was a weird game. First goal for us is a bad break; second goal same thing, bad play from (Nathan) Beaulieu to deflect the puck in the net.“

Brendan Gallagher

• “No one is looking at [Carey Price]. We gave up way too many good chances. … They took it to us. I don’t think we can look at one area of the game and say we were better than them. They outplayed us in every aspect of the game.“

Max Pacioretty

• “Other people talked about [the winning streak], we didn’t. We’ve gotten off to a great start this year. We’re not happy. You’re only as good as your last game, and we weren’t very good tonight.”
• “We didn’t match their intensity and there’s no excuse for that. It was a statement game and they wanted to prove they could beat us, especially in their barn.”

Canucks forward Alexandre Burrows

• “It’s a huge measuring stick against probably the beat team in the League right now. We really wanted that first win at home probably more than they wanted that 10-game winning streak.”

Canucks coach Willie Desjardins

• “It was good to see that we could beat a top team. I think all our guys had confidence, but it was still nice to find a way and hold a lead going into the third.“

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com