CANADIENS
Montreal

6-2

KINGS
Los Angeles

Game Notes:

Smoke, mirrors and elite goaltending.  This game should have been a blood-bath. The Kings have a big, strong, skilled team who drove to the net all game long. L.A. flat out dominated for 60 minutes. The Kings have been one of the NHL’s premier possession teams for the past few seasons and they put on a clinic at the Bell Centre in an impressive Corsi-dominant performance. And what did the Canadiens have to counter this force? The best goaltender in the world: Carey Price with 44-saves and a .957 save percentage.

No need to Zamboni here. The Canadiens were outshot 14-4 in the first period. Want to know how much time Montreal spent in it’s own end? They had only four offensive zone faceoffs in the entire first period and they didn’t create any of them.  A O-zone faceoff resulting from a shot that Martin Jones had to hold on to? Didn’t happen. Two of the faceoffs came after the Kings iced the puck and two when L.A took penalties.  Of the four, Tomas Plekanec and Brendan Gallagher each won one with David Desharnais losing both of his draws.  It was not the start the Canadiens had in mind.

Patience required. As mentioned in the last All Habs Recap, it was too soon to call the new No.1 line of Alex Galchenyuk, Max Pacioretty and Brendan Gallagher an unqualified success. In this game, they were outmatched going head-to-head with the Kings top line of Anze Kopitar, Marian Gaborik and Dustin Brown.  It will take time for Galchenyuk and company to develop into a consistent offensive unit.

Faceoff machine. In the second intermission Sportsnet ran a feature on Manny Malhotra. He has single-handedly transformed the Canadiens into a faceoff power in the league now ranking first at 55.4 per cent. In addition to his expertise on faceoffs for the fourth line he has been helping his fellow Habs centres. Against the Kings, Montreal was 63 per cent as a team on faceoffs with everyone above 50 per cent except David Desharnais at 45 per cent.  Alex Galchenyuk was impressive at 69 per cent with the master, Malhotra, at 77 per cent.

Czech connection. The Canadiens were certainly opportunistic scoring six times on just 20 shots on goal.  The stat line and a .700 save percentage for Kings goaltender Martin Jones looks awful. No question that Jones could have been better but give the Canadiens credit for their transitions, quick puck movement and the beginnings of traffic in front of the net.  Jiri Sekac with Tomas Plekanec looked good once again

Is it a blue moon? In an extended slump that has spanned two seasons, David Desharnais scored his first even-strength goal in 52 games. Desharnais now has three goals in 31 games this season, one back of Dale Weise and one more than Sven Andrighetto who scored his second tonight in just his third NHL game.

Who’s best? Prior to the game, Kings defenceman Drew Doughty said, “I always want to outplay the opposing team’s best defenseman. I think last night I did it, for sure (against Erik Karlsson.) Tonight is going to be a tough challenge. P.K. (Subban) is a good player. I’m going to have to outplay him if we want to win the game.”  Doughty and Subban each had a goal and an assist.  Doughty had 5:09 more in icetime and registered five shots on goal. Just two shots on goal for Subban with five giveaways.  We’ll have to give the edge to Doughty on this night.

Plus / Minus

▲▲ Carey Price

▲    Jiri Sekac, P.K. Subban, Andrei Markov, Manny Malhotra

▼    Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher

1.  Carey Price  MTL
2.  Drew Doughty  LAK
3.  Jiri Sekac  MTL

• “We were playing against a team that, independent of the score, are the defending Stanley Cup champions. We saw why they were the champions. They’re tough to play against. They’re big. They’re physical. It’s not an easy task to play a team like that. They played a good game.”
• “Carey (Price) was good again. He gave us a chance. We took advantage of our scoring chances. Obviously, it wasn’t our best game. It’s good to score six goals. It’s good for the confidence of our players. The most important thing is the result.”
• “We played the Stanley Cup champions. We’ve never claimed to be contenders for the Stanley Cup.”

Max Pacioretty

• “There were 44 points in the game where he made a particular save [that mattered]. That was a great, great performance by [Carey Price]. At the end of the day, you feel a bit bad that you let it get that bad [in terms of shots on goal]. But, we have so much confidence in him every night. You know if he’s going to make that many saves, then we’ve got a chance to win the game. That one’s on him.”

Jiri Sekac

• “He’s priceless. (Carey) Price is priceless. You don’t see a goaltender like him every day. I’ve been around. I’ve played in the Finals in the KHL. I’ve played in World Championships. But, I’ve never seen a goalie like that. He’s amazing. He’s good every game. He’s consistent.”

P.K. Subban

• “We jumped on them early, scoring the first goal, Jiri (Sekac) getting in front, and it was key for our team. We sort of built off of that first goal and then we started getting our forecheck going a little bit.”

Carey Price

• “We were definitely opportunistic. We capitalized on the few chances that we did get, and that’s a good hockey club over there. They played pretty well tonight, the score doesn’t indicate how that game went, and we’ll take the two points, obviously.”

Kings defenceman Drew Doughty

• “We know Carey Price is an unbelievable goalie, one of the best in the League. He wins games for his team all the time. But we just wanted to keep putting pucks to the net, and as you saw in the third period we started putting pucks behind him and started getting on a roll. We started cheating a little bit and not playing the right way and that backfired.”

Kings forward Anze Kopitar

• “It definitely stings. I thought we played, the first two periods were pretty decent but we were down 3-0. In the third we just got away from our game plan and just gave way too many odd-man rushes. Team like this, the skill that they have, they’re going to make you pay.”

Kings coach Darryl Sutter

• “We had a lot of really good chances. We totally dominated the first period. I think Carey Price was really, really good, wasn’t he?”