The Montreal Canadiens were hoping to finally beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in their last match-up of the season at the Bell Centre tonight, but they didn't even come close.
The Montreal Canadiens started the game well, and for once, they capitalized on an opponent's mistake when Cole Caufield picked up the puck off a turnover and took flight with Nick Suzuki. The sniper fed the center, and the captain scored his 11th of the season, his 30th point in 29 games.
Speaking of mistakes, barely a minute later, Patrik Laine was assessed a two-minute penalty for holding when Anthony Beauvillier bounced backward like a jack-in-a-box, the nearby ref saw that the Penguins player lost his balance, but the one who was further away thought the big Finn was the culprit.
A minute later, Samuel Montembeault was fishing the puck out of his own net after Richard Rakell tied up the score on a great Kris Letang feed. While the Canadiens did manage to get some energy and trap the Penguins in their own zone, as is often the case, they lacked finish and were unable to score.
As a result, the Pens got some energy back and dominated the end of the period, at the end of 20 minutes, Pittsburgh had 11 shots to Montreal's six and the score was tied 1-1. However, the Canadiens still had over a minute of power play left since Blake Lizotte had been called for holding with 49 seconds to go in the first.
Montreal couldn't find the back of the net in the leftover power play, but they were given another two opportunities in the first seven minutes of the frame. Result? The Canadiens led 7-0 in shots in the first nine minutes of the period, but once again, they couldn't separate themselves from the Penguins and the score remained 1-1.
Until Mike Matheson was taken for a ride by Bryan Rust who served him a fresh cup of coffee before cutting to the net and beating Montembeault to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead. Less than four minutes later, of a faceoff, the same Matheson turned the puck over to Sidney Crosby who passed it to Rakell, who flipped it to, of course, Rust and just like that it was 3-1 for the Pens.
Down by two goals, Martin St-Louis finally elected to ship Juraj Slafkovsky back with Suzuki and Caufield and place Newhook with Kirby Dach and Laine. It was high time to make the change, three of Laine's four points since returning came on the power play. Two players who are struggling with one who just returned from a lengthy injury was always going to be a challenge.
Thankfully for the Canadiens, Jake Evans' hard work paid off, he dropped a pass to Emil Heineman who spotted Armia in space and the (other) big Finn brought the Canadiens back within one. Trailing by one goal to start the third has been one of the teams' pet peeves, with a 0-11-0 record in such circumstances, but they still had a chance considering Pittsburgh's poor defensive record...or did they?
To win in the NHL, playing 60 minutes is mandatory. There's no points for hanging in there for 40 minutes and that's what the Canadiens did tonight. Less than five minutes into the final frame and after Josh Anderson took two successive minor penalties, Rakell got his second goal of the game and things unravelled from there. Letang scored three minutes later, then Beauvillier made it 6-2 ending Montembeault's night right there.
Cayden Primeau's arrival in the game didn't help either, but it wasn't on him. Straight from the moment he went in, the Penguins had good scoring opportunities and shots. In the end, he gave up three goals on eight shots. Final score: Pittsburgh 9 - Montreal 2.
Suzuki put it quite eloquently in his post game media availability when he said "we fell on our face in the third." As for Kaiden Guhle, when asked what David Savard brings to this lineup when he's playing he immediately replied veteran presence and he always knows what to say to the young guys when things aren't going well. He did however refuse to put tonight's loss on the veteran blueliner's absence.
Jake Evans called the team's performance embarrassing and unacceptable, adding they just quit and stopped playing, which is a fair assessment. We've said it before, this Canadiens' team is capable of taking the fans through a roller coaster of emotions and that's exactly what they did throughout this homestand.
It all started with the incredible high of getting Laine back for the fans, he brought goals and a couple of wins. Then, the Canadiens put up a good fight against the best team in the league in a loss, beat the Anaheim Ducks on Monday, but tonight, there's no two-ways about it, the wheels came off the wagon.
If the Canadiens are to start learning how to win, there will need some introspection when these blowout losses happen. Suzuki said he didn't think the team quit tonight, but it sure looked like it and that's how Evans described it. Oftentimes, when a team loses in such a lopsided manner, they just want to forget about it, but when it happens so many times over the course of the season, there is an issue there that needs to be addressed. At one stage you need to learn from your mistakes and sometimes to do that, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
If Laine loved the start of his tenure in Montreal and the crowd's cheers and encouragements, tonight, he got to see the flip side of it all. For such passionate fans, seeing a team mail it in in the final frame is unacceptable and as Brendan Gallagher said, they are entitled to boo after such a display.
It's also worth mentioning that Lane Hutson's point streak came to an halt, meaning the franchise record for a point streak by a rookie defenseman stands at seven games, for now at least. I wouldn't put it past him to start another streak soon enough though.
St-Louis refused to say what his next move would be, whether he'd just let his players move on from this because he feels they know what they did wrong or if he would dissect the horror show with them, but something tells me the second option is more likely. While the coach has protected his players time and time again this season, it felt like he realized he just couldn't do that tonight and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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