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RECAP | Canucks – Canadiens: Habs Lose a Lead Again

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RECAP | Canucks – Canadiens: Habs Lose a Lead Again
(Photo: Paul Chiasson, AP)

Montreal Canadiens vs Vancouver Canucks Game Recap: Habs Line-up, Score, Statistics, Highlights, Post-game Interviews, NHL Three-Stars

FINAL/OT | Game 65, Home Game 34 | Tuesday February 25, 2020
Bell Centre, Montreal, QC

CANADIENS

Montreal

3-4

CANUCKS

Vancouver

(Photo: Paul Chiasson, AP)

Canadiens Lineup

Forward lines

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Jonathan Drouin – Nick Suzuki – Joel Armia

Paul Byron – Max Domi – Jordan Weal

Artturi Lehkonen – Jake Evans – Dale Weise

Defence pairings

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Karl Alzner – Christian Folin

Goaltenders

Carey Price – Charlie Lindgren

Scratches

 

Injuries

Victor Mete, Xavier Ouellet

Game Report

The shadow of the trade deadline loomed large over the Bell Centre tonight. Marc Bergevin missed a golden opportunity to take full advantage of extremely generous buyers. Instead he tiptoed through the day as a seller light. 

And then he followed a weak performance with an incoherent, sometimes contradictory, press conference. 

So the players can’t be faulted if their own effort in tonight’s game wavered at times. 

You’ve heard the pattern before. The Canadiens took a multi-goal lead, the opposition  tied the game and the Habs lost another game at home. 

Tonight the proficient Vancouver power-play victimized Phillip Danault and the Habs penalty-kill twice in two opportunities.

Then a poorly managed overtime by Max Domi, Paul Byron and Jeff Petry put an end to the game handing Vancouver their 34th win.

The elephant in room is the dreadful play of Jonathan Drouin since his return from injury. In eight games, Drouin has no points, just seven shots on goal and a minus-10 rating. In addition to the poor numbers, Drouin has the look of a player going through the motions, which is a reminder of how he played last February.

The Canadiens will practice at 11:30 am. on Wednesday morning in Brossard.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Shea Weber, Max Domi, Paul Byron 

▼  Jonathan Drouin, Christian Folin, Nick Suzuki, Dale Weise, Phillip Danault

The Numbers

 Game Statistics 
CANADIENS   CANUCKS
40 Shots 34
47 Face-off % 53
0-for-1 Power Play 2-for-2
4 Penalty Minutes 2
28 Hits 19
61 Corsi For 45
 Scoring Summary
 FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
 Canadiens (29-27-9) 2 0 1 0 3
 Canucks (34-22-6) 1 1 1 1 4
Scorers Goalies
  • MTL: Byron (3), Weber (15), Weal (7) 
  • VAN: Horvat (20)-PPG, Edler (5), Virtanen (18)-PPG
  • MTL: Price (OTL) 26-22-6
  • VAN: Demko (W) 11-6-2

Stars of the Game

 NHL Official Three Stars
NHL3stars
  1. Tyler Toffoli  VAN
  2. Max Domi  MTL
  3. Jake Virtanen  VAN

Watch

 Video Highlights 

What Did They Say?

 Post-game Quotes
Claude Julien  
  • “The loss happened for certain reasons, whether it was mistakes or whatever, but I think the attitude was good and the effort was there. We had some trouble with puck management tonight. On the overtime goal, we got caught with tired players on the ice, and that’s what happens.”

 Paul Byron

  • “I don’t think this one was like our other games. I thought our team continued to attack. We didn’t sit back and let the team go hammer us in the second and third period. I thought we played a great game, we played aggressively. Our P.K. just didn’t get the job done for us tonight. We gave up two big goals to their power play. Special teams are so important in this League. We lost the game because of it tonight.”

Brendan Gallagher

  • “It was a pretty good game, for the most part. We had a great start. They called a timeout, they started pushing after that. I thought they did a pretty good job of maintaining shifts in our end. We didn’t break; it was a pretty even game.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

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