CANADIENS
Montreal

5-2

CANUCKS
Vancouver

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Galchenyuk – Drouin – Lehkonen
Pacioretty – Danault – Hudon
Byron – Plekanec – Gallagher
Deslauriers – De La Rose – Shaw
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Petry
Alzner – Schlemko
Morrow – Jerabek
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Daniel Carr, Byron Froese, Victor Mete

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body

Game Report 

There was an odd feeling to this game. The contest on the Bell Centre ice between the Canucks and the Canadiens was clearly the undercard.

Describe Marc Bergevin’s press conference that preceded the game how you will: clumsy, bizarre, delusional, or just plain irresponsible. But after the general manager stumbled through a 30-minute performance trying to park the blame for his mistakes elsewhere, there was little oxygen left to support a National Hockey League game.

So give the Canadiens credit for taking a very workman-like approach to their west coast opponents. It was the boys from B.C. who led the way with Karl Alzner having one of his best games of the season. Post-game, Alzner credited equipment adjustments for his first goal of the campaign while adding an assist.

With the stomping grounds of his youth being featured on Rogers Hometown Hockey, Carey Price made 34 saves including 16 in the third period. The third B.C. guy, Brendan Gallagher, scored his team-leading 16th goal of the season and added an assist on Paul Byron’s late goal.

But this performance was not one to be immortalized in an oil painting. The game was exactly what it was: two weak teams at the bottom of the standings with plenty of mistakes on both sides. Montreal took advantage of plenty of juicy rebounds from Vancouver starter Anders Nilsson. As is often the case, Price was the difference.

~~~

▲  Carey Price, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, Jacob De La Rose, Karl Alzner, Alex Galchenyuk, Tomas Plekanec, Paul Byron, Jeff Petry

▼  Jonathan Drouin, Marc Bergevin

1. Brendan Gallagher  MTL
2. Karl Alzner  MTL
3. Daniel Sedin  VAN

• “All you can do now is look at the future and how we can finish. We have a challenge and hopefully we’re up to that challenge. Tonight, we’re six points out of a wild-card spot. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s not an easy task to gain six points.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “I’ve been pretty fortunate this year. Last year, nothing was really going my way; this year, [it’s] vice-versa. Pucks are finding me, coming on my stick. All night, Pleky and Pauly did a great job of hounding pucks and creating a lot of turnovers on the forecheck. That’s why our line was able to have some success tonight.”

Tomas Plekanec

• “We played pretty well. We skated. We were on the puck. I thought we did all the right things to be successful.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Alzner kept it simple, just sent the puck to the net and Gallagher finishes the job on a generous rebound of Nilsson #Habs @AllHabs

— Mathieu CHagnon (@Mat_CH) January 8, 2018

When stating that players had not lived up to the expectations of the organization, Bergevin didn't allow for the possibility that they were mis-evaluated by the organization, such as Hemsky, Streit, …..#GOHABSGO

— All Habs (Canadiens) (@AllHabs) January 7, 2018

RECAP | Rocket – Devils: McNiven Stands Tall in Commanding Laval Victory https://t.co/Rp1DggrSVG pic.twitter.com/YHBwavryML

— AHL Report (@TheAHLReport) January 7, 2018

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