CANADIENS
Montreal

HURRICANES
Carolina

Game Notes:

A star is born. Success develops confidence.  Alex Galchenyuk scored his first NHL hat trick at the tender age of 20. He is the youngest Canadiens player since Stephane Richer in 1986 to accomplish this feat. Additional confidence can only help to breed further success as Galchenyuk makes the transition back to his natural position.  Consistency will be the next test. Playing as a number one centre, Galchenyuk will have to find a way to make an impact against the better teams in the league. We didn’t see that in the game against the Kings. As mentioned before, patience will be required.

Myth busting. For more than one third of the Canadiens season Max Pacioretty has been saddled with a marginal NHL’er posing as a first line centre because of purported “chemistry.” Yet somehow another mystical chemical bond has formed in just three games for Pacioretty with Alex Galchenyuk as his centre. The difference is: this connection is productive.  Pacioretty, in a helper role, had the primary assist on each of Galchenyuk’s three goals.  With Brendan Gallagher, any of the three members of the newly-formed first line are a threat to score making them more difficult to defend than any previous Canadiens combination this season.

Price again to the rescue. It was a good start to the week. It was fun to watch the joy on the face of Alex Galchenyuk after scoring his hat trick.  But as Hurricanes coach Bill Peters said, “It’s 2-1 with five minutes to go and I think we’re coming a little bit.”  After a rough first period, Carolina went toe-to-toe with the Canadiens. They dominated the Habs physically and generated more shot attempts. If not for Carey Price, particularly his saves in the third period, the result could have been different.  It would have been a very different narrative losing to the worst team in the league.

One trick pony. RDS claims to be a sports network but they act like a lobby group.  David Desharnais was more visible on Tuesday night than he has been in most of the 32 games of his dreadful season.  He notched an assist on Brandon Prust`s goal as Cam Ward went wandering out of his net.  Desharnais was responsible for Carolina’s only goal as he was out-muscled by Victor Rask.  For his one point and shaky defensive play, playing against the third line of the 30th place team, Desharnais was given the third star by RDS ahead of more obvious candidates like Brendan Gallagher, Andrei Markov or Carey Price. RDS went further declaring that Lars Eller would be relegated to a fourth line spot on the wing when he returned from injury. It`s ludicrous that they continue to demean the skills of a clearly superior hockey player in order to promote their favourite.

Curious coaching. Did the result of the game need to be in so much doubt?  The Hurricanes have now lost six straight and are 30th in the league. They have only won three games on the road all season.  So why did Michel Therrien drop Sven Andrighetto to the fourth line despite his three game point streak? Andrighetto played just 9:06. Why did the third line centre receive more ice time (18:03) than any other Canadiens forward?  That’s four minutes more than the guy who had a hat trick. His line seemed to be playing well.  David Desharnais and his linemate P.A. Parenteau received more power-play time than any other forwards.  The Canadiens went 0-for-5 with the man advantage.

Plus / Minus

▲    Alex Galchenyuk, Max Pacioretty, Carey Price, Andrei Markov, Brendan Gallagher

▼    Michel Therrien

1.  Alex Galchenyuk  MTL
2.  Max Pacioretty  MTL
3.  David Desharnais  MTL

• “Honestly, Galchenyuk, I’m really happy for him that he scored three goals, he has such quick hands, but he had a guy to his left in Pacioretty who worked extremely hard and had good offensive vision to get him the puck. I really liked Pacioretty’s work ethic and leadership on that line, and Galchenyuk took full advantage of it.”
• “I think maturity will help [Galchenyuk] to be more consistent. He had a great game tonight, but the challenge is, we want him to have another good game next game, and that’s the challenge for a young kid. And he’s not different from the rest of our young kids. They need to perform game after game.”

Max Pacioretty

• “I think [Galchenyuk] owes me dinner.”
• “It’s just a lot of fun right now. It’s fun playing with those two. I’m not old by any means, but they’re pretty young and they bring my age down a little bit. I feel like I have a lot more energy playing with them at times – they’re always going, always buzzing. They’re two guys who are easy to play with.”
• “What I like about our line right now is that we’re just reacting. We’re not really overthinking things out there and I think that makes us dangerous. We know where each of us is going to be on the ice and I think we’re starting to make our plays off of instincts. When a line does that it’s a lot of fun to play, but at the same time we also know we have things to get better at, so we’re looking forward to that.”

Alex Galchenyuk

• “All my family was here.  My father, my mom, my sister; I guess [the hat trick] was for them.”
• “We had good chemistry today. Pacioretty made great plays on all three goals. They were all thanks to some amazing passes that came my way, so my job was easy. I got used to his speed and he got used to playing with me. I had a lot of fun out there tonight. I was happy to score two goals, but it feels even better to score three.”

Hurricanes coach Bill Peters

• “It’s 2-1 with five minutes to go and I think we’re coming a little bit. That was a key moment in the game, and then from there it gets extended and it looks like a one-sided game.”