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In Hainsight: Montreal Steals One from the Ducks |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Prior to the game yesterday, the Canadiens announced Air Canada as their official road jersey partner. In other words, from now on and for multiple years, the airlines’ logo will be featured on Montreal’s white jersey. That’s right, the Habs will be playing their away games with a maple leaf on their chest…that’s something I never thought I’d write. The jokes seemed to write themselves for that agreement, starting with the fact it would hardly help the Habs to show up on time for the first period given the airline’s issues with timeliness, but at least for the first game of the deal, the Canadiens did show up on time.
Montréal came out strong last night and had gotten itself a two-goal lead by the seventh minute of the game, thanks to a pair of goals within 38 seconds of one-another. Newhook scored first just as the Tricolore’s first power play was expiring with helpers from Pearson and Gallagher. Then Kayden Guhle joined the attack and was able to score, completing a solid play started by Jake Evans’ efficient forecheck. In the end, Montreal bombarded John Gibson’s net 15 times in the opening frame alone, but before the buzzer rang to send both teams back to the locker room, Anaheim was already causing turmoil in the offensive zone and desperately trying to get even, forcing Montembeault to make a few solid saves.
The Becancour native would go on to face another 21 shots in the last two frames making a couple of highlight reel saves to sign his fourth win of the season. Without his heroics, the Canadiens would have lost the game and it would have been the deserved result. While the Sainte-Flanelle showed that it had heard its coach’s message about the need to be better at forechecking and apply pressure on the opponent’s players in the offensive zone, it left itself open to many odd-man rushes from Anaheim.
Mason McTavish was the Duck’s best player, scoring a pair of goals in the middle frame and Frank Vatrano got his 13th of the season in the third, the forward is the fourth best goal scorer in the league right now. For the Canadiens, Alex Newhook scored two goals on the night, including the game winner with less than four minutes remaining in the third period. The forward now has six goals this season, making him the joint leader in goals scored on the team with captain Nick Suzuki.
Jonathan Kovacevic had a rough night at the office, turning the puck over in his own zone a few times with ill-aimed soft passes and being rocked by a couple of hits in his own zone. Once again, Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson got several shots on goal, but nothing went in for the pair of forwards. Thankfully for St-Louis, a couple of blue liners found the back of the net to allow Montreal to skate away with the win.
Today being Thanksgiving in the States, there will be no games played in the NHL, but the Canadiens will be back with a couple of matinees on Friday and Saturday against the poor San Jose Sharks and the Los Angeles Kings. Until then, happy Thanksgiving to you American Hockeybuzzards and enjoy the feast and football!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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