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In Hainsight: Lame Ducks Dominate Canadiens |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
The once Mighty Ducks are now anything but, when they rolled into town prior to the game yesterday, they only have one regulation win to their name and were dead last in plenty of statistical categories, including penalty killing and goals scored. Still, it was Marty St-Louis’ team that looked like a bunch of ugly ducklings for most of the night and Anaheim notched its second regulation win of the season.
For the first 40 minutes, Montreal was pretty much just going through the motions, there was no jump, no intent to their game, errant passes were almost the norm, and nothing seemed to be working. People are quick to condemn Brendan Gallagher for not scoring anymore, but when he’s in the line-up energizing his teammates, these half-hearted efforts just don’t happen.
The Habs did wake up in the 3rd frame when Cole Caufield scored 2 goals in a span of 3 minutes and 26 seconds to give some life to the Bell Centre. For a couple of minutes, the Habs’ faithful hoped that their favorites had managed to turn the tide, but hope was short lived. Just over 4 minutes after Caufield had tied the game up, Jordan Harris interfered with Jake Allen and made it impossible for the netminder to stop John Klingberg’s second goal of the night which would be the game-winner. There’s no denying that the Canadiens are starting to make a habit of shooting themselves in the foot, whether it is by lack of discipline or just thoughtless plays.
Anaheim would go on to add a couple of empty netters to close the book on a second loss in as many nights for the Canadiens. Understandably when a team is taking on the last place squad in the league and looking like they are struggling to compete, there were some boo birds at the Bell Centre last night. Seems the crowd is less inclined to be patient when the team doesn’t even appear to be trying.
Fans were disappointed to see that Juraj Slafkovsky had lost his spot on the first wave of the power play and that Christian Dvorak had inherited it in the third. It’s one thing to watch the future unfold before your very eyes but it’s quite another to watch veterans who should know and do better struggle. I don’t think I’ve ever heard as many swearwords as when Jonathan Drouin couldn’t hold the blue line in the last few minutes and the Ducks scored their first insurance goal.
Quick to pounce on the refs’ performance the night before, Martin St-Louis made it clear last night that this defeat was on his team and nothing else. The coach said that his men just didn’t deserve to win that game and that even if they had managed to pull it off, they just wouldn’t have deserved it. Like it or not, in such a long season, there will be games like these, especially now that the routine is setting in. An NHL campaign is a grind, and the novelty effect of the coach’s arrival has now worn off, with a tough schedule ahead and a lot of road games, don’t be surprised if the Habs fall in the standings, not that it would be such a terrible thing.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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