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The First Goes to the Flyers |
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It was never going to be easy against a red-hot Philadelphia team, but the Canadiens showed tonight that they can hold their own against Alain Vigneault’s team. Unfortunately, though the Habs didn’t really put in a full 60 minutes effort.
There might have been some first game jitters for the Canadiens as they had a tough first period. During those first 20 minutes, Montreal only managed to get 5 shots on net and it was clear that it would take a lot more than that to get some rubber past Carter Hart. As for the Flyers, they dominated the first frame, shooting on Price’s net 11 times and managing to score a power play goal while Jonathan Drouin was sat in the box for a useless slashing. Provorov’s shot from the blueline was deflected by Paul Byron and found its way behind Price who couldn’t track it in the traffic. This was the first of 5 penalties for the Canadiens on the night, fortunately, only 3 of them resulted in power plays for Philadelphia.
When the puck dropped on the second, Montreal seemed to be more comfortable and and played a much better game. It’s fair to say that they dominated that period with 17 shots on goal but they were unable to take advantage of most of their chances. Hart played well but he did spread some rebounds around which the Canadiens failed to bury expect when Weber did on the power play. If the Bleu, Blanc, Rouge is to have any chance to win this series, they will need to do a better job of converting their opportunities.
The joy of being leveled was rather short lived since a mere 16 seconds after the captain’s goal, the Flyers were regaining the lead on a play that looked inoffensive at first. It would probably be fair to say that it was a soft goal given by Price, he was deported to his right and it was an easy tap in for Farabee but how much can you blame a guy that has a .935 save percentage on the night? It’s pretty unfortunate that this marker would turn out to be the game winning goal however.
As for the final frame, the Canadiens got themselves in hot water giving a 4 on 3 power play shortly followed by a 5 on 4 but they resisted. The time spent killing those wasn’t spent attacking though and in the end, they only tested Hart 6 times. Needless to say, when you’re down a goal in the 3rd, you really need to turn it on and go all out on the attack but that didn’t happen tonight.
While the result is disappointing, there are a lot of positive to tonight’s game:
-Price’s compete level: Grant was pushed into him in the first period and he promptly got back up and menaced to hit the Philadelphia player with his blocker. Thankfully he didn’t (that could have been a match penalty), but it was great to see him as fired up as he was. He also made quite a few nice saves out there, none more spectacular than when he tipped the puck with his stick after having been caught out of position.
-The kids are alright: It’s insane to see how much Kotkaniemi has improved since he was sent down to Laval. He’s tougher and he’s even smarter out there. Case in point, in the first, he was trying to send a pass to Armia and instead of going for the high-risk play, he sent the puck on the boards at the right angle and reached him. It almost looked like a masterful mini-putt shot from Carl Carmoni (If you grew up in Québec in the 80s, you know what I mean there!). As for Nick Suzuki, he might have had a tough night face-off wise finishing with a 42% success rate, but he won a few big ones on the penalty kill. Furthermore, at one point, when Price was flat on the ice and leaving a lot of net to shoot at, he had no hesitation whatsoever diving in there to stop the upcoming shot. While Price managed to tip the puck out of danger, it was still great to see the youngster’s dedication. Finally, he rung a wrister of the post in the third, coming oh so very close to tying things up.
The new big three: I know, they aren’t Savard, Lapointe and Robinson but they’ve been huge for the Habs so far and tonight was no different. Weber scored the lone Habs goal, Petry received the 3rd star of the game and threw 5 hits including a real bone crusher in the 3rd and Chiarot also landed 6 hits. Each of them once again played over 20 minutes and their presence on the ice is oh so reassuring compared to when the Ouellet-Mete pairing is out there (that being said, Xavier Ouellet did manage to block 6 shots and dish 2 hits out there tonight).
Kulak’s confidence: tonight, number 77 played over 20 minutes and was also very good. He’s increasingly making the right decision, appears to know when it’s safe to join the attack and when it’s not and well, he’s turning out to be a great partner for Jeff Petry.
So, the Habs may be down 1-0 in the series but they have nothing to be ashamed off, they held their own out there. Game 2 is scheduled for Friday at 3:00 PM. Until then, Julien and co. will be busy reviewing the tapes from this game and hopefully, making some adjustments. I for one would love to see Domi with better wingers if they are going to leave him on the 4th line. Why not give Evans another chance out there and put Poehling in also? Weise and Belzile both played less than 10 minutes and failed to make any kind of impact really. That being said, I doubt Julien will dare to do that… He might have promoted his 2 young centres but he still has some love for gritty vets such as Weise.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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