CANADIENS
Montreal

GOLDEN KNIGHTS
Vegas

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Drouin – Domi – Shaw
Agostino – Kotkaniemi – Lehkonen
Deslauriers – Peca – Hudon
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Petry
Alzner – Reilly
Schlemko – Mete

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Niemi
Price

Scratches

Scherbak, Ouellet

Injuries

Weber, Byron, Armia, Juulsen

Game Report 

It didn’t start off well. The Golden Knights were clogging the neutral zone, a system that they perfected last season, and the Canadiens clearly had no answers.

Montreal spent a good deal of the first period chasing the play and struggling to get the puck out of their own end. Max Pacioretty alone outshot his former team 5-4 in the first frame. Pacioretty’s teammates added 10 more shots to dominate the period.

Vegas also scored twice and the Habs were reeling heading into intermission. Brendan Gallagher said that their play reminded him of last year’s edition of the Canadiens: not skating, not winning battles, too soft on pucks and not providing any puck support.

But somehow the Habs figured it out. And by the midpoint in the second period when Jesperi Kotkaniemi notched his third goal of the season, the Canadiens had a 3-2 lead. They had scored three unanswered goals.

The poor defensive play that has plagued the Habs recently continued in the game. The turnovers, bad decisions and missed coverage continued this game. But tonight, Montreal was able to score themselves out of trouble.

It left those who had placed all of the Canadiens problems at the feet of Carey Price the past few days looking rather silly. With Antti Niemi in goal, the same glaring issues were apparent.

David Schlemko surprisingly played 20 minutes in his first game of the season after returning from injury. Relative to Jordie Benn and Karl Alzner, he played a decent game but it’s fair to say that the defensive game was not an oil painting again tonight. Also, Montreal’s bottom of the barrel power-play continues to struggle mightily.

The Canadiens will be in good spirits as they head out on their Western Canadian road trip on Monday. Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver should provide a good test this week.

===

▲  Artturi Lehkonen, Jesperi Kotkaniemi

▼  Jordie Benn, Karl Alzner, Matthew Peca, Jonathan Drouin

1. Andrew Shaw  MTL
2. Jesperi Kotkaniemi  MTL
3. William Karlsson  VGK

• “We found a way to win. It builds character in the room.”

Tomas Tatar

• “It felt good, for sure. I was extremely motivated to beat my old teammates, and it will always be a special game against them, for sure.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com