CANADIENS
Montreal

MAPLE LEAFS
Toronto

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Eller – Galchenyuk – Semin
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Weise
Flynn – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Beaulieu – Gilbert[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Price
Condon

Scratches: Greg Pateryn, Jarred Tinordi, Paul Byron
Injured reserve:
Suspended: Zack Kassian

Game Report

Despite establishing an NHL record for consecutive regulation wins to begin a season, there weren’t too many smiles in the Canadiens dressing room following the game. The players were well aware that despite one of the worst performances of the early season, they were leaving the rink with two points courtesy of their world-class goaltender.

One of the keys to Montreal’s success so far this season has been the ability to dominate possession. Not this night. Carey Price faced 52 shots, that’s 12 more than the Habs have given up to any other team this season. Toronto outshot Montreal 38-16 in the final 40 minutes.

The concise game story: Price was brilliant, Jonathan Bernier was not.

The Maple Leafs starter yielded multiple soft goals to Canadiens shooters and was victim of an own goal by Michael Grabner. Montreal also won the special teams battle with two power-play goals on four opportunities and a short-handed marker by Max Pacioretty.

The Leafs outworked the Habs, beating the home squad to pucks. They were more aggressive and brought greater intensity. The Canadiens were far too casual with the puck.

Montreal was opportunistic taking advantage of weak goaltending. In his post-game presser, an unhappy Michel Therrien referenced his team’s ability to find a way to win as one of the few positives.

Therrien admitted that the Habs “were not the better team” citing mental mistakes and undisciplined play in his list of disappointments. Therrien directed criticism at Alex Semin, saying that the right-winger was directly responsible for two of the Leafs three goals.

Semin lost shifts in the third period to Devante Smith-Pelly playing just 9:51 at even strength.

Expect Therrien to address the decline in play as the team will practice in Vancouver on Monday. The Canadiens will meet the Canucks on Tuesday night in the first  of their three game road trip in Western Canada.

▲     Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, Max Pacioretty, Tomas Plekanec, Dale Weise, Lars Eller, Alexei Emelin, Brian Flynn

▼     Nathan Beaulieu, Alex Semin, Torrey Mitchell

1. P.K. Subban  MTL
2. Carey Price  MTL
3. Max Pacioretty  MTL

• “Tonight we were not the best team on the ice. Our special teams helped us win. That and the prowess of Carey Price. I felt that the Leafs had a lot of energy, unlike us. Mentally we were not sharp. We made mistakes with the puck and without the puck, and that is not usually the case. The good news is that we found a way to win.“
• “We have to be aware of something: From now on, we are going to see the best from every hockey team. We need to realize that. They’re looking to play against us. That’s a huge challenge mentally to be at the top at this time of the year. The story of the game is simple. Our special teams units were good and Carey Price was outstanding.”

P.K. Subban

• “Personally, all I think we’ve accomplished is a good start, that’s really all it is. There’s a lot of hockey left to be played, so everybody’s going to be talking about a lot of things over the next couple of days, and that’s fine, but for our team it’s just about the next game and getting prepared to play our best game.“
• “You’ve got to give them credit, they came out hard. They knew we were maybe going to be a little bit tired and they pushed the pace. They did exactly what any team would want to do going into a building on a team that’s played back to back games, so they executed well but we’ve got Carey Price in net and he gave us an opportunity to win the game, and it seemed that we were able to get some offense going, too.”

Max Pacioretty

• “It’s nice, but we feel like our game the past few games has maybe been slipping a little bit and we’ve got to get back on track with dominating the possession game.
• “I think 52 shots is too just too much, and we relied on Carey way too much, and that’s a bad feeling for the guys. Obviously you don’t want to get too spoiled. It’s two points. We found ways to put pucks in the net but we would have liked to play the last two games a little bit more in the opposition zone and we look forward to doing that hopefully next game.”

Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf

• “[Carey Price] made some big saves on the 5-on-3, whatever you want to say, momentum saves, game-changers, he was solid, and when we get that opportunity, it’s our job to get one. I thought we generated a lot, but generating doesn’t count, you’ve got to find a way, but also, we hit how many posts? So that’s not an excuse, it’s reality. I thought we generated a lot but we’ll come back to work [Sunday], head up, and get back to it.”

Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock

• “Obviously a shorthanded goal against, I didn’t like. I didn’t like their second goal. We got out of position on their power play but to me a couple of decisions we made at their blue line too cost us, and obviously you can’t give up five and win in the League, and their goalie was outstanding.“

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com