Martin St-Louis wondered on Sunday morning if it was an advantage for his Montreal Canadiens that their host, the Tampa Bay Lightning, had played the night before. Usually, yes, it would have been, but after returning from the Christmas break, the bench boss was concerned that his players might need some time to shake off the rust. It wasn’t the case, though. The Habs hit the ground running and played a nearly perfect first frame, but as has often been the case this season, it was in the second frame that they came undone.

Montreal dominated the first 20 minutes in puck possession and shots, but it just wasn’t able to capitalize on three power play opportunities; that’s the kind of mistake that eats at you, at your confidence and plays on your mind for the rest of the game.

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Staying In Control For 60 Minutes

Given the fact that the Habs dominated the play early on, they probably felt they should have been in the lead when Ivan Demidov’s stick broke for the second time of the game, which allowed the Lightning to send Nikita Kucherov on a breakaway and, of course, to take a 1-0 lead.

The frustration was evident when Alexandre Texier took a silly penalty in the offensive zone less than 40 seconds after the locals had taken the lead. Thankfully for Texier, the Bolts were unable to capitalize on the opportunity, but it still gave Jon Cooper’s team some momentum back.

The second goal also came from a Canadiens’ mistake/stroke of bad luck when Juraj Slafkovsky tried to launch Josh Anderson on a breakaway but hit the linesman with his pass, and the puck bounced straight to the Lightning, who made the most of the odd-man rush.

Luck had no part in Nick Paul’s goal, however, as he just blew by Phillip Danault to evade his coverage and score on a rebound. Down 3-0 after 35 minutes, the Canadiens were clearly feeling hard done by, while the Lightning were entirely in control.

Gun Shy

It’s been discussed multiple times since the start of the season: the Canadiens need to shoot more. Spending six minutes on the power play and just generating three shots is inexcusable. A goal’s a goal, no matter how pretty the build-up was; there is no point in looking for the perfect play, you need to get the little piece of vulcanized rubber past the goal line by whatever means necessary.

In the third frame, the Habs took 16 shots on net and, unsurprisingly, scored four goals: no shots, no goals; plenty of shots, plenty of goals.

The Kids Line

The first line might be struggling since Slafkovsky has been moved to the second line, but the new unit he forms with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov was the sole reason the Canadiens clawed their way back into this game.

Slafkovsky and Kapanen both had five shots in the game, while the Russian rookie had three (those three all had eight shot attempts, but some were missed or blocked). What’s most impressive is the chemistry between the three, which is getting increasingly better. The ease with which they go from the attack to the defence and back is fantastic; they flip the switch incredibly quickly, and the opponent isn’t always ready for it.

The patience they’ve displayed on a couple of plays was just as impressive. On the Canadiens’ second goal, as soon as the Lightning turned the puck over, Slafkovsky called for the puck even though he was far behind. Kapanen understood that meant put it in space for me when you get to the blueline, and that’s precisely what he did. The power forward collected it, skated in and picked his spot before unleashing a hard wrister, which turned the tide.

A goal wasn’t enough for the Slovak, though; he also got the buzzer beater that sent the game to overtime with less than four seconds left in the frame, thanks to a perfectly timed feed from Demidov that he one-timed past Jonas Johansson.

Slafkovsky finished the game with two goals and an assist, and he now has a five-game point streak going. Demidov had a goal and an assist, giving him a three-point lead in the rookie scoring race. As for Kapanen, he only got an assist, but he’s no passenger on that line.

When the Canadiens manage to have that same level of effort for 60 minutes, they’ll be quite a force to be reckoned with. While this wasn’t Jacob Fowler’s best game, he gave up four goals on 22 shots for just an .818 save percentage; he couldn’t be faulted on most of the goals. Will the Canadiens use this loss as a reason to send him back down to Laval? I’d be surprised since the loss wasn’t really on him, and I’d wait to see how Samuel Montembeault does in his first game back before making a change to the roster.

The Canadiens will play their next game on Tuesday, taking on the Florida Panthers at 7:00 PM.

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