CANADIENS
Montreal

DUCKS
Anaheim

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty- Galchenyuk – Byron
Eller – Plekanec – Mitchell
Matteau – McCarron – Danault
Lessio – De la Rose – Brown[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov- Emelin
Beaulieu – Pateryn
Hanley – Dietz
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Scrivens

Scratches:  Sven Andrighetto, Mark Barberio, Victor Bartley, Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), P.K. Subban (upper-body)
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Daniel Carr, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry, David Desharnais, Tom Gilbert

Game Report

The Canadiens players chosen as the official first and the third stars of the game did not have 20 minutes of ice-time.. combined!

It was a strange game indeed.  The Anaheim Ducks are in a dogfight with the Los Angeles Kings for the top spot in the Pacific division. And according to the three stars picks, the Ducks were taken down by Mike Brown, picked off the waiver wire, and Joel Hanley, well down the depth chart in St. John’s.

Full credit to Brown who has embraced his role and brought energy to the fourth line. That he added a goal and an assist is a bonus. It was ironic that Brown came up short on his bid for a Gordie Howe hat trick because he failed to earn a fighting major.

A tour through the game stats below will show you that the Canadiens were on the wrong side of shots, hits, faceoffs, Corsi. It wasn’t as if the goalie stood on his head. Truth be told, Mike Condon was a little leaky.

As Ducks forward Jakob Silverberg said, the Canadiens didn’t do “anything super special.”

This is one game that the patchwork lineup managed, through youthful exuberance (even by the veterans), to be at the right place at the right time. And a touch of puck luck didn’t hurt either.

Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau nailed it when he said that Anaheim didn’t put the Habs away early. So with a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude and a little confidence the scrappy Habs pulled out the unexpected win.

The Canadiens travel to Detroit for a Thursday night game against the Red Wings.

~~~

▲     Greg Pateryn, Mike Brown, Andrei Markov, Mike McCarron

▼     Darren Dietz, Phillip Danault

1. Mike Brown  MTL
2. Jakob Silfverberg  ANA
3. Joel Hanley  MTL

• “[Mike Brown] is a demanding guy to play against and he has good speed. He brings some leadership in that room. Those kind of of players earn respect, when they show they’re able to do out there.”

Lucas Lessio

• “Ever since he got here [Mike Brown] has just been energy on and off the ice, a really, really nice guy, and a huge addition to our locker room. Tonight he came up huge, so it’s nice to see.“

Mike Brown

• “It’s unbelievable. We knew it was going to be a hard game to play. We would never have expected to be where we were in the third period, so for us it was great to get the two points. And I’m happy to be here, and I’m happy to play with these fans. I’ve been in this building a lot, playing against these guys, and it’s nice to be on this side now. We’re treated great, and these fans are great.“
• “I had kind of lot of emotions going through; the first one, just a little confused why the puck was right on my tape right in the slot, but I just thought, get the puck to the net and shoot. I was in tight and I wanted to get it up high, and that’s where it went.”

Ducks forward Jakob Silverberg

• “The goals they scored were some defensive-zone mistakes by us, it’s not that they did anything super special, and that’s obviously not the way we play when we’re successful so we’ve got to help [Gibson] more than we did tonight.”

Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau

• “We didn’t play good enough. When you give up four goals, you’re not going to win a lot of games. And we gave up four goals and the guys that scored their goals, here, then everybody on their team got really hungry and determined. And we knew that was going to be the case. If we let them be in the game long enough, they were going to be a tough opponent, but we didn’t take advantage in the first period when we should have.“

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com