CANADIENS
Montreal

RED WINGS
Detroit

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Galchenyuk – Byron
Eller – Plekanec – Mitchell
Danault – Desharnais – Andrighetto
De la Rose – McCarron – Brown[/one_half]

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

Goaltenders:

Condon
Scrivens

Scratches:  Stefan Matteau, Lucas Lessio, Mark Barberio, Victor Bartley, Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), P.K. Subban (upper-body)
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Daniel Carr, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry, Tom Gilbert

Game Report

Early in the season, after a quick trial of two games, Michel Therrien decided that Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk had no chemistry. The two were separated for half a season.  It took several injuries and more than a month of futility from David Desharnais as the team’s number one centre to force the coach’s hand in reuniting Pacioretty and Galchenyuk.

Since then, while there has been a rotating cast of right wingers, the captain and the team’s next number one centre have proven the initial assessment dead wrong.

“The nice part about it is that they’ve plugged in different guys on the right side and we’ve found success with different guys. I think that if you can keep pairs together and insert guys here and there, it makes for pretty good chemistry on a team.” — Max Pacioretty

In this game against the Red Wings, it didn’t really matter whether it was No. 41 or No. 42 that lined up to the right of Galchenyuk and Pacioretty, the line was firing on all cylinders. Sven Andrighetto had a goal and an assist as did Paul Byron.  The captain had two goals in earning the game’s first star while Galchenyuk had two assists.

The night was a bit of a rollercoaster ride for Bell Centre fans. The Canadiens scored twice before the 12 minute mark chasing Red Wings goaltender Petr Mrazek.  The Wings stormed back with three power-play goals in the second period.

In the last three games, the Habs have given up 10 second period goals scoring just one time. You may recall Therrien’s response “I have no idea” when asked about struggles in the middle frame.

The Red Wings continued to press in the third outshooting the Canadiens 23-10. Mike Condon stopped everything in the final 20 minutes for his 19th win of the season. Andrei Markov was outstanding playing just shy of 30 minutes, earning an assist and was a plus-3 on the night.

The Canadiens head to Tampa Bay to play the Lightning on Thursday.

~~~

▲     Max Pacioretty, Alex Galchenyuk, Sven Andrighetto, Paul Byron, Alexei Emelin, Andrei Markov

▼     Mike Brown, Joel Hanley, Darren Dietz, David Desharnais, Phillip Danault

1. Max Pacioretty  MTL
2. Sven Andrighetto  MTL
3. Pavel Datsyuk  DET

• “That was a pretty solid hockey hit, I believe. The puck was right there. So I don’t agree, but that doesn’t change anything.”
• “I don’t know if [Carey Price] is going to practice, but I know he’s coming with us. He needs to work with (goaltending coach) Stephane Waite.”

Max Pacioretty

• “They have a dangerous power play, and if you spend that much time in the box with a team like that that’s desperate for their lives, they’re going to make you pay and that’s what they did.“
• “Everybody has chemistry with Marky. He’s the smartest player I’ve played with.”

Mike Condon

• “They’re a dangerous team. They’re a scrappy team fighting for a playoff spot, so it was good to play spoiler tonight.”

Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg

• “Obviously it’s a big game, important points on the line and we found a way to claw back in the game with some power-play goals, and then it turned back on us.”

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill

• “It’s disappointing, for sure. It’s frustrating and disappointing, but what do you do? We’ve got to move on, we’ve got to learn from it, we’ve got to get better, we’ve got to have a good practice Thursday and play a great game on Friday. That’s all we can control right now.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com