After splitting their first two decisions on the road, the Montreal Canadiens were hoping to finish their road trip with a win against the Chicago Blackhawks. It was the Hawks’ home opener, and there was a pregame ceremony in which a banner was raised in front of plenty of Hawks alumni, including former Habs Denis Savard and Chris Chelios. It was a relatively short-lived affair, which is a good thing, given the numerous penalties assessed in the game.

We recently wrote that the Canadiens’ power play units needed more reps, but we didn’t expect the referees to oblige to that extent. After 40 minutes of play, the home team had been assessed 37 penalty minutes, which resulted in nine power plays for the visitors. Another minor was assessed in the final frame, making it an even 10 power play, the last time that happened to the Habs, Guy Carbonneau was the coach.The Canadiens only managed to score the game-winning goal 15 seconds before the final buzzer. That game should have been wrapped up before then.

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Kaiden Guhle Lays Down The Boom

There’s a lot to be said about Kaiden Guhle, but he often goes unnoticed and unheralded. Tonight, however, he once again delivered a bone-crushing hit that had an impact on the game. It wasn’t a bad hit; it was completely legal, but he laid it on an unsuspecting Frank Nazar. Nazar, being one of Chicago’s top guys, you knew he would have to answer for that hit, even if there were nothing wrong with it.

That’s how Guhle can hurt the other team; not only does he punish the best players, but he gets under their skin with big hits against the stars, and in a game that’s appropriately called, the player who goes after him will get an instigator penalty, which Louis Crevier did tonight. During that penalty, Zack Bolduc was once again able to get on the scoreboard, getting a third goal in as many games.

As a bonus, Guhle also scored the game-winning goal with a shot from the blueline while there was mayhem in the Hawks’ zone.

A Tough Game To Coach

That spirited tilt proved challenging to coach for the Canadiens’ bench boss. With so many power play opportunities, players who are typically assigned to penalty killing duties sat a lot of the time. Through 40 minutes, Oliver Kapanen only had 7:21 of ice time while Josh Anderson had 7:35.

While Montreal got a lot of power play practice, the fact remains that they only scored twice with the man-advantage, and that’s not reassuring. On paper, the two units are great, but on the ice, they’ve yet to really click. It didn’t take Martin St-Louis a long time to conclude that Patrik Laine, Kirby Dach, and Ivan Demidov didn’t click at even strength; it shouldn’t take too long to reach the same conclusion on the power play.

Whichever way you look at it, Juraj Slafkovsky is expendable on the first power play unit. Demidov’s mobility and creativity would go a long way towards helping Lane Hutson, who sometimes looks a bit lost out there. Furthermore, tonight, there were a couple of instances in which the Slovak tried a no-look back pass and cleared the zone for the opponent. Reuniting the sophomore and the young Russian would help both gain a bit of confidence, which wouldn’t go amiss, as neither is doing great so far.

The Faceoff Game Was On Point

The Canadiens had struggled at the faceoff dot in the first two games, but it wasn’t the case on Saturday night. St-Louis’ men won 61.5% of the draws. Everyone had a winning record, Dach won 57.1% of his draws, Nick Suzuki 66.7%, Alex Newhook 57.1% and Jake Evans 71.4%.

This will be something to build on for the Habs. Usually, when you dominate a game to that extent in the faceoff department, the game isn’t that close. The captain wasn’t just great at draws today, though, as he finished his game with three assists.

The Habs finish their first road trip with a winning record and come back home on a two-game winning streak. Montreal will fly back home tonight and enjoy a day off on Sunday before getting back to work on Monday morning in readiness for Tuesday’s home opener against the Seattle Kraken.

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