CANADIENS
Montreal

CAPITALS
Washington

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Radulov
Lehkonen – Galchenyuk – Byron
Andrighetto – Plekanec – Shaw
De La Rose – Mitchell – Flynn
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Beaulieu – Petry
Markov – Nesterov
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

David Desharnais, Greg Pateryn

Injured Reserve

Brendan Gallagher (hand)

Game Report

The Canadiens aren’t shooting and they aren’t scoring. This team is not creating offence. Just 12 shots on goal in the first 40 minutes and then a flurry in the third to bring them to a paltry 22 for the game.

And it’s not just a one-game phenomenon. Take a look at the Canadiens regulation losses in 2017:

February 4 | WSH 3-2  Shots: 22
February 2 | PHI 3-1  Shots: 16
January 26 | NYI 3-1  Shots: 22
January 19 | PIT 4-1  Shots: 20
January 16 | DET 1-0  Shots: 18
January 13 | MIN 7-1  Shots: 21
January 10 | WSH 4-1  Shots: 23

That’s just seven goals scored in seven games. And perhaps even more startling, the Canadiens are averaging just 20.3 shots per game in those losses.

Against the top-10 teams the Canadiens have a record of just 4-11-1.  Despite their lofty perch in the Atlantic division, shouldn’t alarm bells be going off somewhere?

With all of the difficulty creating offence the head coach is stillreluctant to play his number one centre on the top line. It didn’t happen in this game until the last half of the third period when Phillip Danault was sidelined with an injury. Prior to that, Alex Galchenyuk played well but wasn’t in sync with his wingers.  

The concern is Galchenyuk’s defensive play. But Danault’s is equally weak and his offensive game is no where near that of Galchenyuk.

The Canadiens may be a couple of players away from competing but there are also structural issues that aren’t being solved by the coaching staff.

~~~

▲     Carey Price, Alexander Radulov, Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk

▼     Nathan Beaulieu

1.  Nicklas Backstrom  WSH
2.  Alexander Radulov  MTL
3.  Andre Burakovsky  WSH

Max Pacioretty

• “We had a bunch of chances [as a group], and [Alex Galchenyuk] had two or three just to himself as well. The chances were there against one of the best goalies in the league. We just fell short today.”

Shea Weber

• “On a positive note, we showed a lot of character when we were down 3-1 there to battle back and almost tie it up.”

Jeff Petry

• “I think [today] was definitely a better effort than in Philadelphia, but there’s always room to grow. There are always things to correct in a game, so we’re definitely going to look at the tape today, and then get ready for our quick turnaround tomorrow. We’ll learn from this one, forget about it, and get ready for Sunday.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com