Suzuki Leads the Canadiens Over the Panthers | RECAP: FLA @ MTL

Forwards

22 Cole Caufield - 14 Nick Suzuki - 20 Juraj Slafkovsky
11 Brendan Gallagher - 15 Alex Newhook - 40 Joel Armia
17 Josh Anderson - 71 Jake Evans - 56 Jesse Ylonen
55 Michael Pezzetta - 36 Colin White - 49 Rafael Harvey-Pinard

Defensemen
8 Mike Matheson - 21 Kaiden Guhle
72 Arber Xhekaj - 58 David Savard
47 Jayden Struble - 54 Jordan Harris

Goaltenders

Starter: 35 Sam Montembeault
Alternate: 30 Cayden Primeau

Out of the lineup

Scratches: Tanner Pearson, Johnathan Kovacevic
Injuries: Carey Price (knee), Chris Wideman (back), Kirby Dach (knee), Christian Dvorak (upper body), Joshua Roy (hand)

The Canadiens love game day Tuesdays! Since the beginning of February, Montreal has lost just once when playing on Tuesday and that loss came in overtime. In that span they have won seven times.

In consecutive Tuesdays, the Canadiens have earned upset wins against the Colorado Avalanche and the Florida Panthers, teams who are presently hovering around the 100-point mark. And in tonight's game Montreal simply outplayed a Panthers team who turned in a flat performance.

The Panthers led the game at the first intermission on carbon copy goals by Anton Lundell and Aleksander Barkov. Florida took advantage of defensive miscues and some shoddy goaltending. The Panthers goals were sandwiched around Joel Armia's 14th goal of the season.

Early in the second period, Brendan Gallagher's tenacity around the pads of Anthony Stolarz led to a goal review. It quickly became clear that the puck didn't cross the goal line but mistakenly referee Eric Furlatt announced a goal at centre ice. After the Canadiens and their fans celebrated, the referee acknowledged his error.

Oddly that seemed to provide a boost to the Canadiens and deflate the Panthers. Nick Suzuki scored a short time later and then added a second goal before the period had expired. Montreal took control in the middle frame and never looked back.

Cole Caufield scored a wraparound goal just 33 seconds into the third period while Jake Evans added a shorthanded marker. Montreal clearly won the special teams battle on this night.

The Canadiens cruised to a 5-3 win ending a seven game losing streak against the Panthers.

Canadiens (29-33-12)
Shots: 39
Face-off %: 36.4
Power play: 1/7
Penalty minutes: 26
Hits: 20
Blocks: 18

Panthers (47-24-5)
Shots: 40
Face-off %: 63.6
Power play: 0/5
Penalty minutes: 40
Hits: 15
Blocks: 16

Canadiens Scorers
1st period: Armia (14)
2nd period: Suzuki (31), Suzuki (32)-PPG
3rd period: Caufield (21), Evans (7)-SHG
OT: --
SO: --

Panthers Scorers
1st period: Lundell (10), Barkov (22)
2nd period: --
3rd period: Bennett (18)-SHG
OT: --
SO: --

Goaltenders
MTL: Montembeault (W) 15-14-7
FLA: Stolarz (L) 14-7-2

Nick Suzuki - Suzuki scored twice and led the team with six shots on goal.

Jake Evans - Evans scored a goal and was perfect on the penalty kill. He was also the Canadiens top faceoff man in this game. 

Martin St. Louis on Juraj Slafkovsky

"I think he understands with his size, physicality is always going to be a big part of how he conducts himself on the ice without running around looking for stuff that's not there."

The Canadiens will continue their five-game homestand on Thursday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

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