CANADIENS
Montreal

MAPLE LEAFS
Toronto

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

It’s always a good night for Habs fans when they can celebrate a win, particularly against one of the Canadiens’ biggest rivals. The Leafs were icing a group of forwards with a distinct lack of NHL talent and with the changes made to the Habs roster, it should have been a cake-walk. But it wasn’t.

The well-coached Maple Leafs pressured the Habs, made exiting the defensive zone difficult and clearly won the possession battle. In the end it wasn’t new additions, new lines or a new power-play that delivered the Canadiens win. As usual, it was Carey Price.

Price stopped 36 of 37 shots, allowing a single power-play goal that was deflected twice.  Price was calm, made some huge saves, slowed the game by eating rebounds ad helped his defense by moving the puck. In other words, he was Carey Price which is exactly what the coach said after the game.

Alex Galchenyuk had his first goal of the season potting a rebound set up by Andrei Markov and Lars Eller doing great work screening in front. The Galchenyuk line looked good on their one and only chance on the power-play moving the puck smartly.

Max Pacioretty played well getting a gift from Leafs goaltender Jonathan Bernier for his first goal as captain. He added an empty-netter in the last minute of play.

P.K. Subban had three assists and led the team with four blocked shots in 24:35 of ice-time.

It can’t have been a very satisfying game for Habs management. Since last year’s trade deadline GM Marc Bergevin has brought in Devante Smith-Pelly, Jeff Petry, Torrey Mitchell, Brian Flynn, Zack Kassian, Alex Semin and Tomas Fleischmann to provide scoring, physicality and depth.

None of the above, with the exception of Petry, contributed in a positive way to Wednesday night’s win.

Despite the hype about the rejuvenated Semin, he looked much more like the player last season who was a healthy scratch 25 times with the Carolina Hurricanes. Flynn coasted aimlessly. Fleischmann, Mitchell and Smith-Pelly were mostly invisible.

And despite having two talented lines at his disposal, Michel Therrien fell back into his well-worn rut giving third line centre David Desharnais the most even-strength ice-time of any Canadiens forward. The only significance of Desharnais’ stat line was that he was 4-for-14 in the faceoff circle handing possession to the Leafs. Desharnais’ line gave up twice the number of shot attempts as other lines.

But, as was the case last season, the stellar goaltending of Carey Price hid a lot of warts and delivered the first win for the Canadiens in this young season.

The road trip continues with a stop in Boston for a Saturday night match against the Bruins.

▲     Carey Price, Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Lars Eller, P.K. Subban, Andrei Markov, Jeff Petry, Tomas Plekanec

▼     David Desharnais, Brian Flynn, Torrey Mitchell, Tomas Fleischmann, Alex Semin

1.  Carey Price  MTL
2.  Jonathan Bernier  TOR
3.  Alex Galchenyuk  MTL

• “Carey Price played like Carey Price.“

Max Pacioretty

• “It’s exciting because our team showed flashes of what we’re capable of doing. We didn’t put together 60 minutes, but it’s definitely inspiring knowing that we’re able to play a certain way. I think when we’re on our game, we’re a very tough team to play against.”
• “We’re used to that. We definitely relied on [Carey Price] a little bit too much tonight, but that’s what we’re used to. He plays that way every night.”
• “There were small details of what we liked, and then there were times when we got away from it. That’s when we ran into trouble. It’s something to build off of. There were definitely flashes of positives. We know we have more in this room, and it’s inspiring.“
• “I had a lot to prove. Some people told me they didn’t think I’d be ready or people maybe doubted it. But, I wanted to come out and play a strong game. I think that our line did that.”
• “I think [our line was] pretty lethal. We had a lot of opportunities to score, but we were pretty sound defensively, too. That’s what I liked most about our game.”

Carey Price

• “We obviously would’ve liked to maintain a little bit more offensive-zone pressure. But at the end of the day it worked for us, and we’ll definitely take the win.”

Maple Leafs forward James van Riemsdyk

• “[Carey Price] won the MVP last year for a reason so he’s a tough one to score on. But we’ve got to stick with that process, and we’ll have some success.”

Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock

• “There are no moral victories in the NHL. You either won or you lost. It’s real simple that way. But obviously the process is there, and they’re trying.”
• “I thought their goaltender was real solid. I thought ours was real solid after the first shot.”