Canadiens: The night of the champions before the big defeat

The Montreal Canadiens had a big task tonight: get back on the road with a win against the near-perfect New York Rangers. Luckily, there was additional help, namely players from their numerous championship teams from the 1970s. Of course, the legends weren't allowed on the ice, but it was hoped their presence would be an inspiration. Before the game, the former players were made available to the media.

Excellent goalkeeper Ken Dryden was asked what he thought of this year's team and he said:

This team knows where it's going and it's starting to move in that direction. Some of the special players show that they are special and watching Martin St-Louis it looks like he is one of those special people too. His interview that he did after Patrik Laine's injury was fantastic, just the way he spoke, he understands, he knows that his job here and everyone else's job here is to be special, it It's not about being good, it's not supposed to be great, it's supposed to be special. This is the standard, this is what you have in mind.

Unfortunately the Rangers were not impressed and they were ruthless, taking advantage of every single mistake. The Habs started well with a threatening first play that saw Lane Hutson nearly score, but with the game going the other way less than a minute in, Mika Zibanejad made the most of poor defensive coverage, beating Samuel Montembeault with one One-timer in acres of space to give New York a 1-0 lead. Coach Martin St-Louis said the following at the start of the game:

It was a fun start if you look at the first shift, until the end of that shift it was a good shift for us. Zibanejad comes off the bench, beats us on a substitution, comes late and Lane was in the game, in the offensive zone, made the play and almost scored. It's difficult for a defender to think about the second wave flowing back into their own zone, because as a defender you go back into the net. It was a good shift and it ended badly.

A minute and a few seconds later, Montembeault thought it would be icing on the cake, he signaled it, Logan Mailloux stopped playing and before Homer Simpson could say “D'OH!” It was 2-0. Of course, there is a lesson to be learned from this: you play until the final whistle, but sometimes you react differently at the end.

View the original article to view embedded media.

After 4 minutes of fairly flawless free hockey, Lane Hutson tried to get around Reilly Smith, who reminded him that he was an NHL player, grabbed his bag and made it 3-0 for the Rangers. As the coach said in his post-game post, it's hard to win a game when you're three points behind before the first TV timeout.

After Josh Anderson was sent into the box for a cross-check, Filip Chytil beat Justin Barron's guard to make it 4-0 on the power play and send Montembeault into an early shower. Needless to say, the packed Bell Center was subdued to say the least after the opening ceremony.

Still, some players kept trying, Jake Evans, who never loses steam in high water or high water, worked tirelessly, had two shots, two hits, one rough penalty and won 60% of his face-offs in the first frame.

Related: The Canadiens' unsung faceoff hero

Anderson, who had just left the penalty area, fought with purpose behind Igor Shesterkin's goal and was spotted by captain Nick Suzuki, who changed direction to go to the top of the net rather than changing and he managed to take the lead with his first goal to shorten it to one of the year.

St-Louis didn't punish its young defenders despite the juicy turnover, Hutson saw more than seven minutes of action in the first and was right back on the ice next to Mailloux at the start of the second frame.

Brendan Gallagher converted a penalty when he forced Adam Fox to grab it as he headed it all alone at Shesterkin five minutes into the second frame, waking up the Bell Center crowd. With Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Mike Matheson and Alex Newhook, the Habs managed to reduce the visitors' lead to two thanks to a fantastic performance from the captain, who scored his second goal of the night and of the season.

The Rangers were still hungry, however, and less than four minutes later, Braden Schneider used Primeau's glove hand to score high, giving New York a 5-2 lead.

Unfortunately, I spent much of the second frame wondering why the Rangers couldn't extend their lead even further, I'm sorry to say, but Primeau has confidence issues and when things go wrong, he seems incapable to be, to leave it behind and move on. There were numerous occasions tonight where he lost sight of the puck and it miraculously stayed in the blue until it was retrieved by a friendly stick.

After 40 minutes, the guests had a 25:18 lead in shots on goal, and that was without the many hits on the post up to that point. It's honestly hard not to be impressed by the visitors' passing game, their attack really is a very well-oiled machine that St-Louis described as a “circus offense” and full of picks, which I think is a pretty apt description.

Things got worse in the third period, the Canadiens kept trying and Evans converted a penalty, but the power play couldn't convert. A little frustrated, Brendan Gallagher was having a little argument with Jacob Trouba in the goal area after the final whistle when Chris Kreider jumped on Gallagher and both were sent into the penalty area, leaving Trouba free to skate around on the ice.

Unfortunately for Justin Barron, he took full advantage of his freedom and backed into the Canadiens defender with a shoulder strike to the head that went unpunished by the referees, at least since Matheson jumped on him. Of course, the stand-in captain received a 5 minute penalty for affray, a 2 minute penalty for incitement and a 10 minute penalty for misconduct, which added insult to injury. The Rangers then added two more goals and walked away with a 7-2 win.

Evans, who has suffered more than his fair share of headers, said after the game:

I just hate to see it, I didn't like the hit… yeah, I just hate to see it and I hope JB can recover quickly and it's not that bad, we're just thinking about him . We have a really tight group here, that's one thing that's going well […] Nobody on the bench liked the goal and for him to step up says a lot about how close we are and how good a teammate he is [Matheson].

The Canadiens will have plenty of time to lick their wounds, as their next game is Saturday and tomorrow's practice is scheduled for a later-than-usual 11:30 a.m. in Brossard.

Follow Karine on X @KarineHains, Bluesky @karinehains.bsky.social and Threads @karinehains

Bookmark the Hockey News Canadiens page for all the Canadiens news and events