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RECAP | Red Wings – Canadiens: Julien Says Habs Were ‘Soft’

Rick Stephens

Montreal Canadiens vs Detroit Red Wings Game Recap: Habs Line-up, Score, Statistics, Highlights, Post-game Interviews, NHL Three-Stars

FINAL | Game 33, Home Game 19 | Saturday December 14, 2019
Bell Centre, Montreal, QC

CANADIENS

Montreal

1-2

RED WINGS

Detroit

Canadiens Lineup

Forward lines

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Artturi Lehkonen – Max Domi – Joel Armia

Nick Cousins – Nick Suzuki – Jordan Weal

Ryan Poehling – Nate Thompson – Riley Barber

Defence pairings

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Otto Leskinen – Cale Fleury

Goaltenders

Carey Price – Charlie Lindgren

Scratches

Christian Folin, Mike Reilly

Injuries

Paul Byron, Jonathan Drouin, Victor Mete, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Matthew Peca

Game Report

The Canadiens moved from the Forum to 1909 Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montréal in 1996. For the past 23 years, fans and media have debated whether the ‘Ghosts of the Forum’, the legendary Fantômes, made the journey to the alcoves of the Bell Centre.

This season the Habs have been any but intimidating at home. In fact, their head coach believes that his team has been soft at the Bell Centre. Following tonight’s loss, Montreal has a home record of 8-8-3. That is just a .421 winning percentage.

These are not numbers consistent with a playoff contender.

The Red Wings are not having a banner year. They are ranked 31st in the NHL and are the only team in the league with single digits in wins. Coming into this game, Detroit had a .188 winning percentage on the road.

Playoff contenders do not have difficulty beating a team like the Red Wings.

As of this evening, Detroit and New Jersey are the two worst teams in the NHL. The two teams have combined to win just 10 games on the road this season. Forty percent of those wins have come against a single team, the Montreal Canadiens.

Is this a statistic that speaks playoffs to you?

At the end of the 2018-19 season, each Canadiens player and management did their own soul-searching wondering where the extra point or two went astray that dashed their playoff hopes. Will the seven points yielded to the 30th and 31st teams in the league in their own building be on the minds of the current Habs players this off-season?

What about Marc Bergevin? His inactivity in the summer and so far this season has left the Canadiens short of the key talent they need. Is he content to stand pat and preach the fallacy of the St. Louis miracle?

Claude Julien is correct. The team is playing soft. He doesn’t have enough scoring and a strong defence to play a speed game. And he doesn’t have enough players with size and grit to play a grind game.

So they Canadiens have to be content with throwing a lot of pucks from the perimeter, hoping and praying that enough will find their way to the back of the net. It’s either that or handing a goaltender with a 3.33 goals against average and an .890 save percentage a first star award.

The Habs rollercoaster season continues.

Following the game, Otto Leskinen was returned to Laval while Lukas Vejdemo was recalled. The Canadiens will have a travel day on Sunday.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Ryan Poehling, Joel Armia, Shea Weber

▼  Brendan Gallagher, Jeff Petry, Phillip Danault, Jordan Weal, Nick Suzuki, Max Domi

The Numbers

 Game Statistics 
CANADIENS   RED WINGS
43 Shots 20
52 Face-off % 48
0-for-1 Power Play 1-for-4
12 Penalty Minutes 4
26 Hits 28
64 Corsi For 28
 Scoring Summary
 FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
 Canadiens (15-12-6) 0 0 1 – – 1
 Red Wings (9-22-3) 1 0 1 – – 2
Scorers Goalies
  • MTL: Tatar (12)-SHG
  • DET: Bertuzzi (11), Green (2)-PPG
  • MTL: Price (L) 13-10-3
  • DET: Bernier (W) 6-9-2

Stars of the Game

 NHL Official Three Stars
  1. Jonathan Bernier  DET
  2. Mike Green  DET
  3. Tyler Bertuzzi  DET

Watch

 Video Highlights 
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What Did They Say?

 Post-game Quotes
Claude Julien  
  • “There was some guys that went to the front of the net, but we had a lot of guys that didn’t want to get on the inside there. I thought we played a little bit soft tonight at times. We weren’t finishing, we weren’t in the battle and we just kind of looked to play an easier game than we should have and because of that we got burnt.”
  • “We’ve been good on the road, we haven’t been good enough at home. We don’t play as hard at home so far … we haven’t played as hard as we have on the road. So that needs to change.”
  • “We really aren’t in a bad spot, but we also have to have some awareness that eventually there’s some teams that are going to catch fire and I’d like that to be our team.”
  • “There’s a battle there … we’re not in a bad spot, but there’s a real battle that every night there’s some movement there in the standings. We’re in that situation right now that if we don’t win on a regular basis we’re going to slide down and I’d like us to win a little bit more on a consistent basis so we can move up.”

Brendan Gallagher

  • “We didn’t get enough quality scoring chances and when we did, we didn’t bury them.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

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