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As the Canadiens hosted the Islanders yesterday, they also held an event night “Christmas at the Bell Centre”. The first few thousands of fans to arrive received a free Christmas ornament thanks to sponsor Lafleur, the marketing team had hidden a few golden tickets throughout the building and released hints through the game on Instagram for lucky fans to find them and win a prize, but more than anything else, the fans wanted a good show and a win if possible and that’s exactly what they got.
Juraj Slafkovsky set the tone early in the first with his active stick on the back check picking the Islanders’ pocket quite a few times, creating turnovers and leading to chances to shoot on net for the Canadiens. In his post-game comments, Martin St-Louis explained that the 1st overall pick in 2022 was like a sponge, absorbing the coaching staff’s teachings so well, that there are no hesitations in his game when it comes to forechecking and backchecking (it's not the case when it comes to shooting, but I digress). He even added that Slafkovsky is one of the best they’ve got when it comes to that.
The Canadiens completely dominated the first period, they had more shots (15-10), they had over five minutes of offensive zone possession and were winning over 70% of the faceoffs, but they couldn’t solve Varlamov and both teams were scoreless after 20 minutes. The Habs kept on working, applying the same recipe in the second frame and taking a commending lead. Joel Armia scored first thanks to Gallagher’s relentless work and less than three minutes later, Josh Anderson finally scored a goal with a goaltender in the net provoking an eruption of cheers in the building. Then, in the last minute of play, Anderson got his second of the game, and Caufield finally scored his eighth of the season after what seemed like a very long dry spell. Those late goals should have been backbreakers for the Islanders, but they weren’t…
Early in the third period, the Islanders clawed their way back into the game with a pair of Brock Nelson goals that brought the score to 4-2 Montreal. After the game, the coach explained that his players executed the game plan devised to counter the Islanders’ tendencies to perfection for the first 40 minutes, but once a team is down 4-0, those tendencies got out of the window and the opponent plays like they are on a pond, they play loose since they’ve got nothing to lose. St-Louis took a time out to settle his players and it worked, for the following 10 minutes, Montreal was able to withstand the pressure. With a little less than six minutes to go though, Bo Horvat brought the Islanders within one goal of tying up the game, but the Canadiens held on, scoring an empty netter through Christian Dvorak with 20 seconds to go in the game.
St-Louis mentioned it’s a rare feat for a team to play with a 4-0 lead and his players are learning to deal with playing with such a lead and against a team that’s improvising in front of them. The only way to counter that is to use the power of five according to him, the five players on the ice have got to do what the game is asking of them as a five-man unit. While they tried their best to do just that, they still allowed the Islanders to take 17 shots on goal in the third frame…moral of the story? The power of five still needs its goaltender to back them up and Samuel Montembeault once again held the fort.
With two goals in the game, Josh Anderson was named the first star and he got a monster of an ovation when he was interviewed on the ice by Renaud Lavoie. Both the crowd and his teammates were over the moon to finally see Anderson score a “real goal”, beating a goaltender in regulation for the first time since mid-March last season. The power forward made it easy for all of them all to stay behind him during this seemingly endless dry spell though, he never stopped working and trying. He got plenty of scoring chances all season long but couldn’t convert. It’s his hard work and dedication which prompted Martin St-Louis to tell him that he would not give up on him unless he did give up himself. He did lose his spot on the first power play unit, and could have started sulking then, but instead he just kept pushing on relentlessly.
The Canadiens will now start a very long road trip, seven games away from home including three this week alone against the Jets, Wild and Blackhawks. Thankfully, the team will come back home for the Christmas break and won’t play from December 23 to December 28 when they’ll return to action against the Carolina H
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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