CANADIENS
Montreal

PANTHERS
Florida

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Galchenyuk – Gallagher
Eller – Plekanec – Carr
Danault – Desharnais – Andrighetto
Byron – Mitchell – Scott[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Pateryn
Emelin – Johnston
Hanley – Dietz
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Lindgren

Scratches:  Mark Barberio, Victor Bartley, Nathan Beaulieu, Stefan Matteau, Mike Brown, Brett Lernout, Lucas Lessio, P.K. Subban
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry, Tom Gilbert

Game Report

It was like the two teams were playing very different games. The Florida Panthers were on the verge of clinching the second division title in their franchise history. The Canadiens were auditioning for a role in a future feature film.

For his starting forwards, Florida coach Gerard Gallant chose one of the premier lines in the league: Jaromir Jagr, Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau. With last change Michel Therrien sent out John Scott, Torrey Mitchell and Paul Byron. Clearly, one head coach was prepared for a hockey game and the other had a completely different agenda.

From the opening faceoff, it took just ten seconds for Barkov to rifle a shot past Mike Condon. Jagr and Huberdeau picked up assists. It was like the stage curtain came crashing down on the one-night-only Scott spectacle.

I half expected Harold Ballard to call out from the bunker behind the north goal and shut it all down. Okay, wrong rink, wrong owner but a franchise in similar disarray to the one that occupied Maple Leaf Gardens.

With hockey not being the forte of the home team these days, management decided that a gimmick was needed to fill the empty seats. But the folks who haven’t got much right this season were wrong again. Stu Cowan tweeted that “by far the most empty seats we’ve seen at Bell Centre for #Habs game in a long time, especially in lower bowl.”

The team actually focusing on hockey, the Panthers, were playing their third game in four nights. As a result, they were rather sluggish. Despite this and a whole slew of power-plays in the second period, the Habs couldn’t take advantage. Montreal scored just once with the top line completing a slick passing play.

In the third period, Therrien decided that it was a good idea to send out David Desharnais to take a defensive zone faceoff. It wasn’t. Desharnais lost the draw and it was 3-1 Panthers.  I expect that, on the bench, Jagr was saying that the Habs coach was making it easy again.

For all the silly hype John Scott was a non-factor, as expected. He managed to add a hi-sticking minor to his stat line in just over nine minutes of ice-time. Scott finished the game with a minus-1 rating.

It was not a strong night for Mike Condon who surrendered three questionable goals. With Charlie Lindgren possibly getting a start on Thursday and Carey Price hoping to be back for Saturday, it would be a disappointing end to the season for Condon.

At the other end, hometown guy Roberto Luongo was solid leading the Panthers to a season sweep over the Habs. And after the Lightning fell to the Rangers, Florida celebrated a division championship.

The Canadiens will face the Hurricanes in North Carolina on Thursday in the second last game of the season.

~~~

▲     Brendan Gallagher, Max Pacioretty, Sven Andrighetto, Lars Eller, Alex Galchenyuk

▼     Mike Condon, David Desharnais, John Scott, Joel Hanley, Torrey Mitchell

1. Roberto Luongo  FLA
2. Alex Galchenyuk  MTL
3. Aaron Ekblad  FLA

• “Marc (Bergevin) also met [John Scott] after the game to offer him the chance to end his season a bit early in order to get back home. It’s been two months since he’s been able to really go home and see his wife and his young children. His family means the world to him so we wanted to make sure he was given the opportunity to go home after all of this.“

Max Pacioretty

• “What did we give up, 11 shots in the first two periods? So we were happy with our game, and we gave ourselves an opportunity to win that in the third. We’ve just got to bury our chances. I think there were a lot of chances tonight that were able to be the difference with the game on our stick, and we weren’t able to convert. And I think that comes with time, but we like the effort, but we just want to win games. We want to feel good about ourselves.”
• “We want to have a positive energy and no matter how hard you play or how well you play, if you don’t win, you don’t have those vibes.”

John Scott

• “You never want to give up a goal on the first shift. You’ve just got to move on. You can’t really dwell on it. I thought we bounced back, my line played pretty well and got some good chances. But yeah, it’s not the ideal start we were looking for.”
• “I was surprised to find out that I was in the starting lineup. That was a nice gesture. That’s just what this organization here in Montreal is all about. It is a classy organization and I don’t deserve any of this. To put me out there for the starting lineup, that was really, really nice. I wasn’t expecting any of that to happen.”
• “A win would have been nice. I expected that, the good crowd and good atmosphere. It was a good game, for me anyways. I had fun. But a win would have been nice.”

Panthers forward Nick Bjugstad

• “In the second period they took it to us and [Roberto Luongo] kept us in it. He wrote the story the entire year, keeps us in it when need be. That’s why we’re where we are.”

Panthers coach Gerard Gallant

• “Louie held us in there the first two periods and we found a way to win a hockey game. Next step we got two games left and we got to make sure we keep playing hard because if you don’t that’s when people start getting hurt.”
• “We’re fortunate to get the two points. It showed a lot of character and a lot of grit.”
• “This is great, to win the division title is a great honor for us.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com