The Montreal Canadiens were bailed out by Montembeault last night, but they had no such loss tonight in a crushing loss to the Boston Bruins.
For the second time in as many nights, the Montreal Canadiens were in action against an Atlantic Division rival, this time the Boston Bruins. While home openers are always high-octane affairs, so are bleu, blanc, rouge vs. black and gold games.
After the Bruins had a goal waived off because of goalie interference, the Canadiens scored a second power play goal in as many games, and it was all thanks to Lane Hutson. The kid is everywhere on the ice and dances around unpredictably, so it's hard to keep up. Boston's defense probably agrees about that one.
The Bruins came right back with a man-advantage lamplighter of their own through Charlie McAvoy less than two minutes later. The game kept its frantic pace, though, and Cole Caufield scored his second of the year a little over a minute later to make it 2-1 Habs. Notably, Hutson notched another assist on that one, holding onto the puck until some space appeared in Boston's zone.
Boston scored two more before the end of the first, though, and took a 3-2 lead going into the intermission. If Samuel Montembeault was flawless yesterday, Primeau definitely wasn't today. His life was made much harder by the Canadiens' inability to win draws, holding on to the puck only 30% of the time.
The big bad bears added two unanswered goals in the middle frame, and by the time the buzzer rang, it was 5-2 Boston. The Massachusetts outfit had 11 shots on goal in the middle frame, while the Canadiens could only manage to get 5 through to Swayman. Who said you couldn't ease your goalie in by putting him in the second game of the season when he missed the whole training camp? Forty minutes in, the netminder had barely broken a sweat.
Martin St-Louis tried to wake his charges with some lineup tweaks, bringing Anderson on the first line with Caufield and Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky with Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook in the second line.
Josh Anderson found the back of the net halfway through the final frame to make it 5-3, a most respectable loss. During the play, Oliver Kapanen got an assist, which was the first point in his first NHL game.
Halfway through the last frame, Hutson had already skated in 18 minutes, which is not bad at all for a rookie, and with five minutes to go, he had made it over 20 minutes. At the final buzzer, he had played 22:46 second only to Mike Matheson on the Canadiens' blueline.
Gallagher gave Habs fans a bit of hope, scoring his second of the game, but it was too little too late as the Bruins scored a sixth goal. Final score:6-4 Boston.
The Canadiens' defensive coverage improved as the game went on, and in the end, the Bruins "only" had 29 shots, a number that pales compared to last night's 47 shots surrendered to the Maple Leafs.
The Canadiens will now have a day off before hosting the Ottawa Senators on Saturday at 7:00 PM. Ottawa was also in action tonight, beating the Cup Champions Florida Panthers 3-1.