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After a lackluster performance against the Flyers, Martin St-Louis must have been hoping to see his men make up for it in the tail end of the back-to-back, but they didn’t, far from it. Whenever a team plays two games in a row, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt as it can generally be argued that the team is tired after getting back to town late and leaving it all on the ice the night before, but it’s not the case here. Montreal barely broke a sweat in Philadelphia even though the game went to a shootout and last night, as unbelievable as it may seem, it was even worse.
It was a perfect opportunity for the Canadiens to step up, the Sharks had lost 12 games in a row and were dead last in the league by three points on top of having one of the worst points percentage in the history of the league, but the Sainte-Flanelle looked like it couldn’t even beat the last team Martin St-Louis coached before landing behind Montreal’s bench. San Jose opened the score five minutes in thanks to a big fat juicy turnover from Jayden Struble right in front of the net which gave absolutely no chance to react to Samuel Montembeault. To be fair, Struble rarely commits such blunders and no one’s perfect, but that’s hardly the start which was needed in this game. The gritty blueliner was an annoyed as anyone with himself and he spent the game trying to make up for his mistake, dishing out four bone crushing hits.
A little over 12 minutes later, Suzuki and Matheson found themselves chasing the same player, Hertl behind the net and leaving Zetterlund unmarked in the slot. Hertl, who’s got eyes in the back of his head, couldn’t believe his luck and sent the perfect pass to Zetterlund who made no mistake. Seconds later, Brendan Gallagher pulled the Canadiens back within one, but it was never going to be enough.
The Sharks made it 3-1 in the second and the game was pretty uneventful from then on. Montreal somewhat came back to life to give a final (or a first) push with a few minutes left and with Montembeault back on the bench, but it wasn’t enough. Josh Anderson injected some life back into the building with a perfectly deflected goal off a Mike Matheson shot which made it 3-2.
Even though Mike Matheson finished the night with a couple of assists, his defensive shortcomings were both painfully obvious and painful. Josh Anderson, whose bobblehead was given last night to the first 8,000 fans to show up, has missed so many breakaways in the last two days that it must be disheartening for St-Louis. After all, this is a facet of the power forward’s game the coach has worked on since taking over. True to himself, Justin Barron once again committed more than his fair share of giveaways.
Up front, Nick Suzuki was stopped on a shorthanded breakaway while Cole Caufield took seven shots on net but just couldn’t find a way in. The shots were either too slow or not placed well enough. My sole gold star on the night goes to Sean Monahan who worked hard and won 71.4% of his faceoffs. After every game, Québec’s newspaper La Presse breaks down the game and always has a “trending up” and a “trending down” player, this morning, they couldn’t find a Canadiens’ player trending up so they just put down anthem singer Brittany Kennell instead…that speaks volume.
NHL insider Dregger revealed yesterday the Canadiens have an understanding with Sean Monahan and have told him he would be traded before the deadline. Giving how thin the center line is right now, that trade will hurt. Speaking of hurt, four goaltenders were injured in yesterday’s games, if ever there was a time to trade Jake Allen it’s now. I know Hughes likes to get what he considers to be the right price for the players he trades, but now may be a good time to lower his asking price. Allen has only won one of his last 10 games and his presence is detrimental to Cayden Primeau’s development, the kid needs to play! Towards the end of the game yesterday, Hughes and Gorton were seen chatting while cheking the former’s cell phone, one can only hope they were discussing a trade offer more meaningful than trading future considerations to Buffalo for AHLer Filip Cederqvist. I know, the injuries have it Laval hard and they need reinforcement, but so does the Canadiens.
The Habs will be back in action tomorrow night at the Bell Center when they’ll host Connor McDavid and co. Edmonton had a terrible start to the season, but now that McDavid’s former junior coach has been hired, they have found their grove in a big way, they’ve won nine games in a row and McDavid is climbing up in the scoring categories.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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