CANADIENS
Montreal

4-0

HURRICANES
Carolina

Game Report

For Habs fans, there was much to celebrate about this game.  With Carey Price in goal, the Canadiens are a lock when they score three goals.  Mission accomplished tonight thanks, in part, to some shaky goaltending from Anton Khudobin.

But full credit to a solid game from the fourth line, their second in a row.  The line centred by Manny Malhotra combined for four points and a plus-6 rating.

Max Pacioretty scored his 35th goal of the season on six shot attempts.  Pacioretty also had an assist; centre Tomas Plekanec finished with two assists.  Brendan Gallagher scored his 20th of the season.

The third line was very effective once again. Lars Eller went 58 per cent at the faceoff dot.  Jacob de la Rose and Devante Smith-Pelly combined for seven hits.

Greg Pateryn played a complete game on the back end blocking three shots, delivering two hits and getting two shots on goal.  Alex Emelin led the team in icetime with 22:46.

Carey Price posted his 39th win of the season and his eighth shutout.

To knit pick, the Canadiens had no business giving up 31 shots to the Carolina Hurricanes nor getting outshot 16-5 in the third period.  Is it too much to ask for a game where Carey Price doesn’t have to stand on his head?

Plus / Minus

▲     Carey Price, Max Pacioretty, Dale Weise, Manny Malhotra, Brandon Prust, Alexei Emelin, Greg Pateryn, Tomas Plekanec

▼     P.A. Parenteau, Alex Galchenyuk

1.  Dale Weise  MTL
2.  Tom Gilbert  MTL
3.  Carey Price  MTL

• On the comparisons between Jordan Staal and Jacob de la Rose: “Yes, I could say, you know. A guy like Jacob, besides his size, he’s got speed, but he’s really responsible on the ice. He’s responsible when he doesn’t have the puck and he’s responsible when he’s having the puck.  This is a great quality for a young hockey player because lots of time young hockey players will force plays, this is where they’re going to turn pucks over, (but) you don’t see that from him. I got the chance to coach Jordan at a really young age, 18 years old, and there was some stuff in his game. And they look alike at such an early age. I like the way that [De la Rose] is playing the game. I like the way that De la Rose is thinking the game. So I’m not afraid to play him against top players.”
• “Prusty (Brandon Prust) is a leader for us, he’s a true leader. Again tonight, I thought he had a good game, he was intense.  You could tell even at the end, that when we had to kill penalties, he was one of the few guys blocking shots. When he’s intense, this is when he is at his best.”

Dale Weise

• “[Carey Price] is just on another level.  The biggest thing I look at him is his how consistent he is. It’s the same every night. He makes big save after big save and game-changing save every single night for us; there’s just no goalie in the League that does it like that. He’s the backbone of our team and we’re going to go as far as he’s going to carry us.”
• “We can’t just rely on our top two lines or our power play to score goals. We need all four lines to score. That’s the way we’re going to score. Prusty, Manny and I want to play fast and get pucks in the zone and just outwork teams. We’re going to have a lot of success if we play like that.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “You look around the NHL right now, it’s pretty tough to come by goals and that’s the way they’re happening. Traffic and rebounds around the net, and you’ve got to be willing to battle. And I think that’s what we talked about before the game; we executed that pretty well and we were able to put a few in.”

Hurricanes coach Bill Peters

• “Well, you know it was 3-0 at the time, and you see that a lot in this League where it’s over, basically, and then one team’s just keeping the clock going and the other team is trying to make a push. But I didn’t think we had enough quality chances throughout [the game]. I haven’t looked at the third yet, but in the first period I didn’t think we were dangerous, second we started to have the puck a little more, make some plays, but all in all we needed to be better than that.”
• “We didn’t get physically engaged in the game for the most part at all, and that part of that was in the [defensive] zone. We weren’t physical at all and there were a lot of seconds and thirds (chances), no box-out, so we can play better than that; disappointing.”