CANADIENS
Montreal

RED WINGS
Detroit

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

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

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

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Daniel Carr

Injuries

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

Game Report 

It was the clash of two teams with almost identical records with the majority of each fan base hoping for a loss. Such is the reality of the Rasmus Dahlin sweepstakes.

The loser (or winner) was the Detroit Red Wings who took a firmer grip on 27th place in the standings riding some weak goaltending from Jared Coreau. The 26-year-old has yet to win a game this season in five starts. Coreau has a 4.40 goals against average and a .859 save percentage this season.

The Canadiens now have 68 points, three ahead of Detroit and are five up on Ottawa, Vancouver and Arizona. The possibility of a third-overall pick is slipping away should things stay the same after the draft lottery.

Just as Coreau was doing his best to embrace the tank, so were the Canadiens in their own zone. The bloom is now completely off the Mike Reilly rose. While some have praised his ability to move the puck, Reilly is a liability in his own end on almost every shift.

Speaking of liabilities, the Jonathan Drouin experiment at centre shows no signs of being anything else but a failure. Drouin cannot correctly read a play in his own zone from the centre slot.

This night was a celebration of Brendan Gallagher, Alex Galchenyuk and Carey Price. Gallagher scored his 30th of the year, Galchenyuk upped his point total to 48 for second spot on the team and Carey Price had another solid start but this time got enough support for the win.

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▲  Carey Price, Brendan Gallagher, Alex Galchenyuk

▼  Mike Reilly, Jonathan Drouin, Karl Alzner

1. Brendan Gallagher  MTL
2. Paul Byron  MTL
3. Alex Galchenyuk  MTL

• “[Brendan Gallagher] is an example of what hard work and perseverance, commitment and dedication is all about. He never complains about anything. He just goes out and does his job.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “We’ve got five games remaining now, so we’re just trying to play the right way game after game and really push each other to carry this over into next year.”

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill

• “Not good enough. [Jared Coreau] has got to be better than that. That’s just the reality of it. In this League, in order to win, you’ve got to have at least a (.910) save percentage on a consistent basis in order to win. You probably need higher to win on a higher level than that, and so, he’s got to be better.”
• “I think [Jared Coreau] has just got to get his confidence back, and he’s not feeling the puck great right now. The puck was bouncing off him lots tonight. So, at the end of the night, it’s a results-oriented position. You’ve got to get results.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com