CANADIENS
Montreal

OILERS
Edmonton

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Galchenyuk – Drouin – Shaw
Pacioretty – Danault – Byron
Hudon – Plekanec – Gallagher
Deslauriers – Froese – Carr
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Weber
Alzner – Petry
Jerabek – Schlemko
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Victor Mete, Joe Morrow, Jacob De La Rose

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Nikita Scherbak – knee,  Al Montoya – concussion, Artturi Lehkonen – lower-body

Game Report by Chris G

The Canadiens started the game with an early scoring chance 90 seconds in as Paul Byron drew a penalty sending Leon Draisaitl to the box. Montreal had the momentum for the next five minutes until former Hab Mike Cammalleri scored his third goal against his former team. On that goal, Charles Hudon wasn’t able to get the puck out of the zone which led to a shot that Carey Price could have stopped.

Oilers took over the period at that point. Almost four minutes later, JuJhar Khaira scored his fourth goal goal of the season, following a bad clearing attempt by the Habs goaltender.

The only positive for the home team in the first period was the play of the line of Deslauriers – Froese – Carr, as they applied pressure in the Oilers zone for almost a minute with five minutes remaining in the period.

The Oilers continued their dominance in the second period. Carey Price was pulled for the second time this season after the visitors scored two quick goals by Khaira, and Milan Lucic.

Andrew Shaw tried to spark his teammates by dropping the gloves against Daniel Nurse, but it didn’t seem to have the desired affect on the play of his teammates. Before the second intermission, Alex Galchenyuk scored his seventh of the season on a power play as he deflected a beautiful pass from Jeff Petry.

The third period started with Brendan Gallagher taking two penalties. That led to a power-play goal by Oscar Klefbom after the puck deflected off Paul Byron and Karl Alzner. Thirty seconds later Yohann Auvitu scored on a 4-on-2. If you are keeping track, that was the eleventh time that the Habs have allowed two goals in under one minute this season.

With four minutes remaining in the game, Philip Danault scored on a delayed penalty call as he jumped in as the sixth player when the Habs fourth line pressuring the Oilers in their zone.

Throughout the entire, the Habs defence did not look good. The Oilers dominated the face-off circle. Wayne Gretzky was in attendance and the Oilers looked like the team that he played on when he was playing. The only response to the Oilers was the Canadiens fourth line.

~~~

▲    Daniel Carr, Byron Froese, Nicolas Deslauriers

▼    Jonathan Drouin, Shea Weber, Jordie Benn, Karl Alzner, Phillip Danault, Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher, Charles Hudon, Carey Price

1. Jujhar Khaira  EDM
2. Connor McDavid  EDM
3. Milan Lucic  EDM

• “It’s not a fun loss. We know the importance of the game and I don’t think we just brush it off. I’m not brushing it off, but I do have to move on and prepare us for the next game. I don’t have a choice. But I’ve got to make some corrections.”

Max Pacioretty

• “We started back on our heels and it looked as if we were worrying about playing defence against some of their players who came through the neutral zone with speed. The way to counteract that is by playing offence. We can’t get away from our game because of players on the other team who blow the zone. We had to make them defend and that wasn’t there.”

Shea Weber

• “It was tough night. We didn’t have the start we wanted. Nothing we can do to take it back now.”
• “I think every night you want to make things easy on him. [Carey Price] has bailed us out so many times, you can’t even count. So you try and make it easy on him and we definitely didn’t come out the way we needed to.”
• “Why would you ever blame him?”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com