CANADIENS
Montreal

6-2

DEVILS
New Jersey

Game Notes:

PP provides turning point.  The first period was reminiscent of the game against the Sabres.  The Canadiens outshot the Devils 14-3 but New Jersey owned a 1-0 lead at the end of the first. There was a nervous feeling in the Bell Centre during the first intermission.  It continued as the second period began.  The tension was broken with Andrei Markov‘s power-play goal just past the midway mark in the period.

Three-power play goals won the game for the Habs. The rest was just gravy. The Canadiens power-play is now ranked 20th in the league at 17.6 per cent efficiency. Given the difficulty scoring goals at even strength, Montreal will need a top-producing power-play in the second half and into the playoffs.

Dominating the stats. It’s a rare night when the Canadiens outshoots the opposition — they did 44-23 — with Brendan Gallagher leading the way with seven shots on goal. But it’s even more rare when Montreal outhits their opponents which they did 24-17. The Habs also dominated at the faceoff circle winning 65 per cent of the draws.  For the second game in a row Montreal dominated puck possession.

Plek. The game’s second star helped dictate the Canadiens offensive outburst.  The Habs talked about the need for more shots on goal; Tomas Plekanec and his line came through with 16 shots.  Plekanec had his 14th and 15th goals of the season.

Plus / Minus

▲    Carey Price, Tomas Plekanec, P.K. Subban, Dale Weise, Lars Eller, Andrei Markov, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher

▼    Tom Gilbert, Jiri Sekac, Gabriel Dumont

1.  P.K. Subban  MTL
2.  Tomas Plekanec  MTL
3.  Dale Weise  MTL

• “We asked our team to be aggressive tonight and we worked on throwing pucks at the net this week. And I think the guys concentrated on putting pucks at the net, with the result we ended up scoring six goals, but I liked our aggressiveness.“

P.K. Subban

• “It probably looked a lot worse than it was, but it was an accidental high stick. It’s just tough. I hate when I get hit in the face, but I’m fine.”
• “It’s always good to score on the power-play. We know how tough it can be at times.  It’s not easy, especially in the second half of the season when teams really try to bare down, but I think we did a lot of good things well. We moved ourselves, we moved the puck, and we put the puck on net when we had to. Our focus from the start of the game was to try to generate as many shots as we could; in the first period we had 15, and in the second we had 30.”

Devils forward Mike Cammalleri

• Their juice and execution was a little better than ours. There were a couple of spurts where we took the game back a bit, and there were some untimely penalties and they really took advantage of them. They made some strong plays. That really turned the tide.”

Devils goaltender Keith Kincaid

• “They were moving it around pretty good, moving to different places and finding those seams and those openings. Their power play was good.”

Devils co-coach Lou Lamoriello

• “It was off the faceoff and [Dainius Zubrus] was reaching. Whether he could have taken another stride or not, you still can’t get your stick up that high in that area, no matter what. You can’t accept those. Those are not good penalties.”
• “The chances were even, despite the shot differential, except on the power play. They had a lot of chances on the power play.”