CANADIENS
Montreal

FLAMES
Calgary

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

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

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Beaulieu – Petry
Barberio – Redmond
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

Alex Galchenyuk, Ryan Johnston

Injured Reserve

David Desharnais (knee), Greg Pateryn (ankle), Andrei Markov (lower body)

Game Report

We have witnessed some odd games in this 2016-17 season: a 10-0 loss to Columbus and a 10-1 win against the Avalanche. While Tuesday night’s contest didn’t have the volume of goals, it was odd in the sense that the final score didn’t necessarily tell the game story.

The first period belonged to the visitors. Calgary had shot leads of 9-to-2 and 11-to-4. The Canadiens had the final three shots of the period and a goal from Andrew Shaw. Despite being outshot 11-7, Montreal held a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.

Credit Carey Price for the first period heroics. Price made several key stops but the biggest save was on Johnny Gaudreau all alone after another gaffe by Nathan Beaulieu.

The Flames dominated the shot clock again in the second period but Price was solid. Shots were 22-13 after the second period for Calgary. They trailed 3-0 with the Canadiens scoring on two of their first three shots of the period.

The key moment in the middle frame was a 5-on-3 penalty-kill by the Canadiens. Call it 2 1/2 as Tomas Plekanec was without a stick after he loaned his to Shea Weber to replace a broken twig.

Montreal made the road team look tired in the third as they added two more goals. Daniel Carr scored his second of the season with Carey Price picking up his first assist of the year. Alexander Radulov scored his second of the game on the power-play.

It was Radulov who took a penalty with less than a minute to go which led to the Flames only goal with just a second remaining.

With Carey Price’s shutout spoiled it was a more subdued dressing room than you might expect from the scoreboard. Radulov was clearly upset that a bad penalty had cost Price the shutout. Michel Therrien wasn’t fond of the penalty either.

What should have been a celebratory mood was more business-like. The Canadiens players were content with the two points but cognizant of the reminder to pay attention to details and to play hard until the final siren.

~~~

▲     Carey Price, Alexander Radulov, Tomas Plekanec, Sven Andrighetto, Alexei Emelin, Andrew Shaw

▼     Nathan Beaulieu

1.  Carey Price  MTL
2.  Tomas Plekanec  MTL
3.  Alexander Radulov  MTL

• “It was a nice team win, but the fact remains that at the end of the game you can’t put yourself in a position to take a penalty like that. Those aren’t good penalties, so that’s the side of things that’s really disappointing about this game.”

Alexander Radulov

• “It felt good [to score two goals], but we really wanted to give this to Pricey. You can’t stop playing at the end. I took a bad penalty and it cost us a goal. He was there for us again. He deserved the shutout. It’s tough, but we’re going to work on those things and make sure that it never happens again.”

Tomas Plekanec

• “I’m happy I was able to help the team win some games. Over the years, I spent a lot of time killing penalties. You get some opportunities offensively as well and you score some goals.”

Carey Price

• “At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter that much. I’ve never been a really big statistics guy. We needed the win more than anything. That’s the way it goes.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com