CANADIENS
Montreal

4-1

RED WINGS
Detroit

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Eller – Galchenyuk – Semin
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Weise
Flynn – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Beaulieu – Gilbert[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Price
Condon

Scratches: Greg Pateryn, Jarred Tinordi, Paul Byron
Injured reserve:
Suspended: Zack Kassian

Game Report

After the first two wins of the season, the question was: Could the Canadiens win with a rookie in goal? They answered that question with the help of Mike Condon.

After the first four games many wondered how the Habs would fare against stronger competition? A shutout of the New York Rangers followed.

Could Carey Price repeated his outstanding season? It’s possible that he is even better so far this year.

Until tonight, Montreal had never trailed in a hockey game this season. So how would they react when 19 year-old Dylan Larkin put the Red Wings on the scoreboard in the second period? We would find out just 2:57 later.

This team keeps answering questions and passing every test so far this season.

Starts were a problem last year. Better this season? Montreal has not allowed a first period goal.

What about those ‘go into a shell and rely on Carey Price’ third periods? Tonight the Canadiens outshot the Wings 20-5 in the third period.

There were too many nail-biters last season! Montreal scored 13 empty-net goals in 82 games. Already this year, they have four EN’s in six.

After six games last season the Habs had a record of 5-1-0 but their goal differential was even. This year the 6-0-0 record comes with a differential of plus-13, tops in the league.

During the off-season and throughout training camp, Canadiens fans questioned whether Alexei Emelin even belonged on this team. Emelin has been strong in each game this season complimenting Jeff Petry and earning his second pairing status. Against Detroit, Emelin delivered crushing ‘think-before-you-cross-our-blueline’ hits on Teemu Pulkkinen and Riley Sheahan.

When Alex Semin appeared on the scene, veteran sportscaster Mitch Melnick expressed confidence that the Russian sniper would produce in Montreal. However, Melnick was not sold on Semin’s linemates Alex Galchenyuk and Lars Eller.

In fact, the opposite has been true. Eller and Galchenyuk have been electric together, defensively responsible and at times, dominant.

No matter the content or source of the questions, the Canadiens are answering them, one after another.

Could they improve their zone exits and entries? Watching players demonstrate patience, holding the puck until they could make a clean exit or regrouping in the neutral zone until a path for a zone entry opened provided the answer.

Will the power-play ever be a threat again? Too early to say but two goals in this game might mean that the team has turned a corner.

The Canadiens will have the day off on Sunday with the St. Louis Blues next on the schedule visiting the Bell Centre on Tuesday night. Which questions will be answered then?

▲     Carey Price, Tomas Plekanec, Jeff Petry, Lars Eller, Tomas Fleischmann, Brendan Gallagher, Alex Galchenyuk

▼

1. Jeff Petry  MTL
2. Alex Galchenyuk  MTL
3. Carey Price  MTL

• “The power play was very good tonight. We scored two big goals thanks to it.  We had a chance to work on things this morning, and it was nice to get back to basics. Drawing up Xs and Os is one thing, but actually getting to practice them is another. The guys applied everything we had discussed this morning — attacking the net and putting shots on goal — and the result was the one we were looking for.“

Alex Galchenyuk

• “You can’t start it any better than what we’re doing right now. It’s a lot of fun; we’re competing out there and finding ways to win.”
• “I spoke to [Brendan Gallagher] after the second period and I told him ‘only you could have scored that goal’. It’s good. He never quits, and it was a real character goal.”
• “We don’t sit back and give teams a chance to get back in the game. Whether we’re winning or losing this year, we’re always pushing.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “I know we’ve been scoring the first goal a lot this year, and certainly that helps, but one of the things we talk about is to play for 60 minutes. Whether you get a bounce early or a bounce late, continue to grind for a full 60 minutes. It’s just a focus of going them line after line, and that mentality has led to some success early on.“
• “It obviously wasn’t the prettiest of goals, but I’ll certainly take it. Any time you can contribute it’s nice, and even though it wasn’t the way we drew it up, getting a power play goal so soon after practicing it this morning was pretty cool.”

Rangers forward Rick Nash

• “It’s two world class goalies going at it like that, I don’t think I’ve ever played in a game where both goalies have played that well.”

Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist

• “I knew I couldn’t give up too many goals to have a chance to win here. I’ve kind of lost the count now of how many times we’ve been shut out in this building. It’s a combination of how they play as a team, but obviously (Carey) Price played a big part in that. For some reason, he likes to play us. But you just have to give him a lot of credit, the way he’s been very consistent against us, especially in this building. I knew going into this game we all needed a really strong performance for us to have a chance to win, but it wasn’t enough.“

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill

• “We’ve got to do a better job of generating more shots and not giving up as many; that means we’re probably spending way too much time in our zone, so I think there’s lots of areas that we can continue to improve at.“