Site icon Habs Hockey Report

Sabres Crush Habs | RECAP: BUF @ MTL

GAME RECAP | Montreal Canadiens vs Buffalo Sabres: Habs, Line-up, Score, Statistics, Highlights, Post-game, Interviews, NHL, Three-Stars

FINAL | Game 19, Home Game 11 | Tuesday November 22, 2022
Bell Centre, Montreal, QC

CANADIENS

Montreal

2-7

SABRES

Buffalo

Jake Allen, Montreal Canadiens (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

Canadiens Lineup

Forward lines

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Kirby Dach

Juraj Slafkovsky – Christian Dvorak – Brendan Gallagher

Evgenii Dadonov – Sean Monahan – Josh Anderson

Michael Pezzetta – Jake Evans – Joel Armia

Defence pairings

Kaiden Guhle – David Savard

Mike Matheson – Joel Edmundson

Chris Wideman – Jordan Harris

Goaltenders

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Scratches

Arber Xhekaj, Johnathan Kovacevic

Injuries

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Mike Hoffman (upper-body), Jonathan Drouin (upper-body)

Game Report

On Saturday versus the Flyers, the Canadiens were down 2-0 before the game was three minutes old. That doesn’t happen very often to a well-prepared NHL team.

But it happened again tonight. And this time it was worse.

The Sabres scored twice in the first minute of play and added a third goal at the 2:13 mark. Martin St. Louis doesn’t much care for systems play or advance scouting but he is doing his players a disservice.

The Flyers came into Saturday’s game winning just two of their previous 10 games. Buffalo, tonight’s opponent, had lost eight games in a row. Yet both teams were able to fully take advantage of an ill-prepared St. Louis’ squad.

With another poor start, the Canadiens were left to chase the Sabres all game. And with Jake Allen struggling in goal once again, Buffalo enthusiastically added to their lead. It was the first time Allen had given up seven goals in a single game in his career.

The Canadiens defence, which had been a pleasant surprise to start the season, has not looked the same since Mike Matheson joined the lineup. Matheson’s decision-making has been the issue, finishing a team-worst minus-3 in this game.

Matheson’s return has also upset the other defence pairings which had been performing so well. With the coaching staff wanting to deploy Matheson with Edmundson, it’s unclear why they found it a good idea to separate Jordan Harris from Johnathan Kovacevic, who had been the Canadiens second best duo to that point.

Up Next

The Canadiens will return to Nationwide Arena to face the Blue Jackets on Wednesday night. Columbus handed the Habs a 6-4 loss in the same building last week. 

Be sure to watch for our Game Day Preview on Wednesday afternoon.

Plus

▲  Cole Caufield

Minus

▼  Jake Allen, Mike Matheson, Joel Edmundson, Evgenii Dadonov, Christian Dvorak, David Savard, Josh Anderson, Nick Suzuki, Marty St. Louis

Game Preview

Check out the game preview here: An Opportunity for Slaf | PREVIEW: BUF @ MTL

The Numbers

Game Statistics
CANADIENS   SABRES
31 Shots 29
55 Face-off % 45
0-for-6 Power Play 2-for-4
17 Penalty Minutes 21
20 Hits 15
31 Corsi For 51
Scoring Summary
FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
Canadiens (9-9-1) 1 1 0 2
Sabres (8-11-0) 3 1 3 7
Scorers Goalies
  • MTL: Caufield (12), Monahan (4)
  • BUF: Dahlin (8), Peterka (4), Tuch (10)-PPG, Skinner (6), Jokiharju (1), Thompson (13), Skinner (7)-PPG
  • MTL: Allen (L) (6-7-0)
  • BUF: Anderson (W) (4-3-0)

Stars of the Game

Official NHL Three Stars
  1. Tage Thompson  BUF
  2. Jeff Skinner  BUF
  3. Rasmus Dahlin  BUF

Watch

Video Highlights

What Did They Say?

Post-game Quotes

Marty St. Louis

  • “We’re just going to get ready for Columbus tomorrow. We’ll address some of these things in a short period of time, but I don’t think we’re going to really break down this game because we’ve gotta to get ready for Columbus. And that’s the approach we’re going to take.”

  •  

    “Is there a couple of things we can go over? Maybe. But there’s no way we can really go over this game that we played tonight and be ready for tomorrow.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Social Media

Best of Twitter

Follow @AllHabs on Twitter

Be sure to follow @AllHabs on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube

Exit mobile version