CANADIENS
Montreal

PENGUINS
Pittsburgh

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Byron – Drouin – Gallagher
Galchenyuk – De La Rose – Lehkonen
Hudon – L. Shaw – Scherbak
Deslauriers – Froese – Carr
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Reilly – Petry
Alzner – Juulsen
Benn – Lernout

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Niemi
Lindgren

Scratches

Michael McCarron

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body, Carey Price – concussion, Victor Mete – hand, Max Pacioretty – lower-body, David Schlemko – undisclosed, Rinat Valiev – lower-body, Phillip Danault – upper body, Andrew Shaw – upper-body

Game Report 

Canadiens fans probably felt good watching their team stay in the game against the defending Stanley Cup champions for two periods. Well, on the scoreboard anyway.

The Penguins were on the second half of a back-to-back having played a game that went into overtime in New York City on Wednesday night. The players likely made it to their Montreal hotel rooms sometime after 3 am. and it showed early in the contest.

But despite the slow start and the tired legs, Pittsburgh managed to put up five goals and doubled up the Canadiens in shots. But, you say, the Penguins must have taken advantage of all of Montreal’s young players and call-ups.

It’s a reasonable assumption but on this night you would be dead wrong.

The Pens took advantage of the line of Jonathan Drouin, Brendan Gallagher and Paul Byron who were a combined minus-8 on the night. On the back end, it was the duo of Mike Reilly and Jeff Petry who were burned, slotting in at a minus-4 combined.

And for good measure, the Habs penalty-kill gave up a goal on two Pittsburgh opportunities.

The good news story was the line of Jacob De La Rose, Artturi Lehkonen and Alex Galchenyuk. De La Rose was handed the task of being matched head-to-head with Sidney Crosby. De La Rose did an excellent job. Crosby’s single assist came while the Penguins were on the power-play.

Lehkonen scored his fourth goal in four games, while Galchenyuk has five points in his last four games. On the back end, Brett Lernout had another solid game.

With expectations set rather low, it was an entertaining game for the Bell Centre faithful. Just five more home dates appear on the calendar for this season.

The Canadiens will practice at Brossard on Friday morning, then head to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

===

▲  Artturi Lehkonen, Jacob De La Rose, Alex Galchenyuk

▼  Mike Reilly, Jeff Petry, Jonathan Drouin, Brendan Gallagher, Paul Byron

1. Patric Hornqvist  PIT
2. Evgeni Malkin  PIT
3. Alex Galchenyuk  MTL

• “[Jacob De La Rose] did a good job again tonight. For a young guy like him to be tasked with containing a player like Crosby — he’s done a good job so far. His confidence seems to be in the right place.”

Jacob De La Rose

• “I thought we stood up well against them, but obviously we would have liked to create more offense than we did. We only had 20 shots, and it’s tough to win games like that. We’ve got to see what we can do better and bounce back for next game.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “We were playing one of the best teams in the League and I think you can see why. It was kind of struggle for us tonight to really create offense. They had the puck a lot and it wasn’t for a lack of work effort. They made some plays over there.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com