After hosting the Detroit Red Wings last night and signing a 3-1 win, the Toronto Maple Leafs were welcoming the Canadiens at the Scotiabank Arena tonight. It wasn’t Craig Berube’s team that looked tired and absent however, it was Martin St-Louis’ Montreal Canadiens.
The coach had said he wanted his players to produce a higher volume of shots and after twenty minutes, it sure looked like the message had been lost in translation since the Canadiens could only muster two shots on net in the first frame. At the end of the game, they barely broke the 20-shot barrier.
Granted the Habs were more organized defensively in this first frame, but the Leafs still took a one-goal lead back to the dressing room even though they had only managed to test Samuel Montembeault seven times.
In the second period, the Leafs struck quickly through William Nylander on a power play goal. The Swede went coast to coast and entered the Canadiens’ zone like a hot knife makes his way through butter, the Habs could only skate backwards and marvel at his moves.
Only three minutes later, as the Canadiens were on the power play, Kirby Dach fell on the ice and took Cole Caufield out in the process, handing Toronto an odd-man rush on a silver plater. The Leafs weren’t going to miss that, and they made it 3-0 through Mitch Marner.
Then came the sole reason for Montreal fans to celebrate when Brendan Gallagher scored his seventh of the year to cut the lead back down to three. It was the 225th goal of his career, meaning he’s now tied with Stephane Richer as 19th best goal scorer in the franchise’s history.
Related: Canadiens: Gallagher Didn’t Find The Fountain Of Youth
Not three minutes later, John Tavares scored on the power play to make it 4-1, and that score line would hold until the end of the contest. While you can’t lay the blame at Montembeault’s doorstep for that loss, the whole team forgot to turn up. Still, if you give four goals on 12 shots, you are not giving your team a chance to win.
After the game, captain Nick Suzuki speaking to the media mentioned his team played a good first and a good third period. Granted, in the first they held the Leafs to only seven shots, but it’s hard to consider a period as good after only managing to get two pucks to the net.
As for the third, yes, the Canadiens had a bit of life, but by then, the Maple Leafs had started taking their foot off the pedal. In the end, it was a 6th straight loss for the Habs which the coach put down to a lack of confidence.
Just like in the first game between the two sides this season, Max Domi tried to pick a fight with David Savard who had no interest in it but handed up eventually dropping his gloves, but by then, Josh Anderson had time to get there and neutralized Domi. This was a scenario exactly like the one in which Arber Xhekaj was trying to fight Sean Couturier and one of his teammate intervened. Just like that night, there was no third man in penalty, so there was at least some consistency from the referees there.
In the third frame, St-Louis wanted to get a reaction out of his attack and put Juraj Slafkovsky back on the first line alongside Suzuki and Dach, meaning Cole Caufield was demoted to the second line. While he hasn’t scored in three games, taking your one and only bona fide sniper off the top line seemed like a puzzling move to me.
Related: Canadiens: Big Problem Up Front
Montreal will now need to move on and make its way to Buffalo where they’ll take on the Sabres at 12:30 PM Monday.
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