Canadiens Fortunate to Pick Up a Point in Philly | RECAP: MTL @ PHI

GAME RECAP | Montreal Canadiens 2 vs Philadelphia Flyers 3 | FINAL/SO

Forwards

22 Cole Caufield - 14 Nick Suzuki - 20 Juraj Slafkovsky
11 Brendan Gallagher - 71 Jake Evans - 17 Josh Anderson
51 Emil Heineman - 91 Sean Monahan - 56 Jesse Ylonen
55 Michael Pezzetta - 13 Mitchell Stephens - 40 Joel Armia

Defensemen
8 Mike Matheson - 58 David Savard
21 Kaiden Guhle - 52 Justin Barron
47 Jayden Struble - 54 Jordan Harris

Goaltenders

Starter: 30 Cayden Primeau
Alternate: 34 Jake Allen

Out of the lineup

Scratches: Johnathan Kovacevic, Sam Montembeault
Injuries: Carey Price (knee), Chris Wideman (back), Kirby Dach (knee), Rafael Harvey-Pinard (lower body), Alex Newhook (lower body), Tanner Pearson (upper body), Christian Dvorak (upper body)

Once again, the Canadiens experienced an issue that has plagued them on and off this season: a failure to start on time. The Habs were dominated in the first period with the Flyers owning a 21-5 advantage in shot attempts and outshooting Montreal 10-2. 

Oddly, the Canadiens scored on each of their two shots in the period and held a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission. Sean Monahan and David Savard picked up their 11th and fourth goals respectively.

Owen Tippett fired a shot into an empty cage with Cayden Primeau no where to be seen for the Flyers first goal. Former Canadien Ryan Poehling appeared to tie the game before the end of the opening frame but the goal review proved to be inconclusive.

In the only other goal of regulation, Morgan Frost fired a wrist shot past the glove of Primeau with the Flyers on a second period power play.

With nothing settled in an uneventful third period, the two teams headed to overtime tied 2-2. The Flyers took control again for the first four minutes of O.T. outshooting the Canadiens 7-1 in the extra frame.

Sean Couturier scored the only goal in the shootout giving the Flyers the extra point.

The Canadiens clearly were not on their game on Wednesday night. After a day off and two days practice, they should have come out flying. The Flyers were the better team in every period of this game including overtime and the shootout.

It's easy to credit Primeau but he had his shaky moments like his teammates. He stopped a high number of shots but many of the prime opportunities were blocked by his defensemen or clanged off the iron. While the Canadiens were significantly outshot for 65 minutes, high-danger scoring chances were 9-9 in this game.

Canadiens (17-17-6)
Shots: 19
Face-off %: 45.6
Power play: 0/1
Penalty minutes: 4
Hits: 19
Blocks:26

Flyers (21-14-6)
Shots: 39
Face-off %: 54.4
Power play: 1/2
Penalty minutes: 2
Hits: 16
Blocks: 16

Canadiens Scorers
1st period: Monahan (11), Savard (4)
2nd period: --
3rd period: --
OT: --
SO: --

Flyers Scorers
1st period: Tippett (14)
2nd period: Frost (7)-PPG
3rd period: --
OT: --
SO: Couturier

Goaltenders
MTL: Primeau (OTL) 4-4-1
PHI: Ersson (W) 10-5-3

Kaiden Guhle - Guhle was a shot-blocking machine with 10 blocks. He also added an assist in 20:35 of play.

Sean Monahan - Monahan opened the scoring and co-led the Canadiens with four shots on goal. He was also the Habs best faceoff man on the night.

Cayden Primeau - It was a mixed bag for the young goaltender. Primeau did not look good on the goals he allowed, and relied on his shot blockers and posts but he was able to handle the high volume of shots by the Flyers.

Marty St. Louis

"We didn't have our fast-ball tonight. We didn't play a good match, we were missing something. There are evenings like that. Sometimes we deserved better, this time we deserved less."

David Savard

"The Flyers don't give much space in the neutral zone, and we were trying to complicate things. It's the kind of match to forget, especially when you play again the next day."

The Canadiens will return to Montreal to host the San Jose Sharks on Thursday and the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday at the Bell Centre.

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