CANADIENS
Montreal

1-2

SABRES
Buffalo

Game Notes:

Lock target elsewhere.  With the Canadiens losing to one of the worst teams in the league, there is a great deal of anger among the fanbase. So let’s begin with who not to blame.

Carey Price played extremely well. He is arguably the best puck-handling goalie in the league. Price controls the pace of the game through playing the puck beyond the crease, he helps with the Habs breakout and he takes forecheck pressure off his defencemen. So, he was justified in going out to play the puck as usual. A freak bounce off the stanchion at the Zamboni door should not open him up to any criticism.

Tyler Ennis made a great play get past Alexei Emelin for the Sabres first goal. But Eric Tangradi over committed on the play and Dale Weise was painfully slow in coming back. P.K. Subban owns some culpability as well.  Not to mention it was simply a great play by Ennis. Emelin went on to play well the rest of the game.  Let’s also cut him some slack on the penalty he took with just under two minutes to go. Sabres captain Brian Gionta certainly worked hard to secure the call.

Feast here. The Canadiens scored just one iffy goal on a basement-dwelling team who gives up an average of 3.23 goals per game.  The goal call could have gone either way with Jhonas Enroth freezing the puck under his skate. The players who get paid to create offense must do better. On this game that included Alex Galchenyuk, David Desharnais, Tomas Plekanec and P.K. Subban.

In addition, the use of personnel and the tactics devised by the coaching staff must be called into question. With four days to prepare and two days to practice, there are no excuses. The Canadiens were not prepared.

The power-play is still dreadful to watch. The one change made on Friday was to deploy P.A. Parenteau at the point. While the Canadiens scored, it was a controversial goal. The decision was bizarre given that Montreal has three of the best power-play point men in the league in Andrei Markov, Sergei Gonchar and P.K. Subban. The problem with the power-play remains up front.  The Sabres are 25th in the league on the penalty-kill.

Simply Montreal didn’t score enough to overcome any bad luck or strange bounces. The Canadiens must start generating more scoring chances and finishing them. They have scored just three goals in their last three games. While Marc Bergevin is fond of saying that you can never have too many defensemen, the team needs to turn their focus to scoring.

Debut. While the fourth line deserved partial blame on the Sabres first goal, Eric Tangradi played well in his first game in a Canadiens jersey. Tangradi skated well using his speed and size to go to the front of the net.  He played with Manny Malhotra and Dale Weise but saw a few shifts on the Eller line in the third period with Brandon Prust out of the game.

Plus / Minus

▲   Eric Tangradi, Max Pacioretty, Carey Price, Jiri Sekac

▼   David Desharnais, Alex Galchenyuk, Tomas Plekanec, Dale Weise, Brandon Prust, P.K. Subban, Michel Therrien

1.  Jhonas Enroth  BUF
2.  Tyler Ennis  BUF
3.  Matt Moulson  BUF

• “[Alexei Emelin’s hit on Brian Gionta] was a big guy against a small guy. I don’t think [Emelin] was going for the head.”
• “[Bad bounce off the boards for the Sabres winning goal] is a bad break. There’s nothing you can do against a bad break”

Max Pacioretty

• “It’s not the result we wanted, but I think there were some good things we can build off of. At the end of the day, that’s the way it goes sometimes and we have to do a better job of finding ways to score goals, not just tonight, but as of late. That could be the difference in the game.”
• “We have to be hungry around the net. There are a couple of things here and there that could have changed that game, but we’re not doing a good enough job getting on the board. There are lots of opportunities for second and third chances and it seemed like we were there, but maybe it’s just a matter of confidence and waiting for a couple of those to pop in. We just have to forget that one and stay focused on tomorrow.”

Bryan Allen

• “Right now, it’s hard, but I think you have to step back and realize we did a lot of good things as the game went on and we need to focus on that and just go out and win tomorrow. Obviously we had a lot of time between games and there was a little hesitation early, but as the game went on, it got better. You can’t focus on one bad bounce. We had chances to win, but that’s the way hockey goes sometimes.”

Sabres forward Tyler Ennis

• “They were doing a good job stopping our entries all night, and we were just saying if you’re going to rim it, you’ve got to get it high on (Carey) Price because he’s good at playing the puck. [I] tried to rim it high and hard and got a really lucky bounce and a great win.”

Sabres goalie Jhonas Enroth

• “It shouldn’t matter if you cover it with your glove or your foot but playing against Montreal you’re not going to get a lot of calls.”

Sabres coach Ted Nolan

• “That first goal by (Tyler) Ennis, I mean, that was one of the goals you’re going to be looking at for probably the rest of the season on certain highlights. That was one beautiful goal.”
• “Those type of hits are not good to watch. I mean, those could be career-ending hits. So we’ll see what the League does with that.”