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Islanders spoil Julien's 1000th NHL game party and shutout Habs 3-0 |
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It was a disappointing loss for the Montreal Canadiens on many levels as the New York Islanders played a perfect road game, shutting out the Canadiens out 3-0 Thursday night at the Bell Centre. Coming off of a big road win against the New York Rangers, one expected that it would have been natural for the Canadiens to carry some momentum over into Thursday’s game. That it would have been the perfect opportunity for the team to win consecutive games for the first time since early January. It should also have been a night of celebration, the game being Claude Julien 2.0’s 1000th NHL regular season as head coach. Coming off of a big road win against the New York Rangers, one expected that it would have been natural for some momentum to carry over. Instead, it was uninspired effort by the Canadiens who once again struggled, especially on offense.
Puck props and flops:
Props:
Carey Price - After three strong performances in a row, it seems safe to proclaim that Price is back to his old self and form. Unfortunately, having a world class elite goaltender in the net is all for naught if you are unable to score. Under Julien’s tutelage Price has allowed six goals in three games and sports a .929 save percentage. Price has certainly fared well since the coaching change but he needs his teammates to step up just like he has if they have any chance of finishing this season strong.
Artturi Lehkonen - He was easily the Canadiens best forward for the second game in a row despite being a minus two on the night. He is quickly becoming a favorite of Julien’s and earning additional responsibilities and ice time. By the third period Lehkonen was promoted to the second line to play alongside Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk as well playing on the penalty kill as well. Lehkonen had a goal called back when he deflected it in off of his glove. If he keeps up that level of play though he will not have to wait long until he finally breaks out and scores for real.
Flops:
Just about everyone else… The Canadiens defense especially had a rough night, letting the Islanders get in behind them all too many times. Collectively they looked slow and tired. They had difficulty exiting their own zone and getting an attack started. Yet Julien felt that a jostle would have had no effect since they were all playing badly. How many more chances will Alexei Emelin get on the top pairing alongside Shea Weber?
On offense none of the lines were able to truly get a cycle and create high scoring chances. The forwards made life all too easy for Islanders goaltender Thomas Greiss. Phillip has seemingly hit a wall as the Canadiens top line center. While he performed above and beyond expectations throughout December and January in between Max Pacioretty and Alexander Radulov, he has not scored in over a month, since January 21st to be precise. It is time to shake things up and try something new.
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Much to the dismay of many though there was little change to the top six forwards at practice Friday morning and the only change on defense appeared to be Nikita Nesterov getting back into the lineup in place of Greg Pateryn. Lehkonen retained his spot on the second line for now while it appears that David Desharnais and Sven Andrighetto might make their debut in the lineup under Julien on Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs:
However, any lineup changes were not confirmed post practice and interestingly Desharnais was not made available to the media:
Cheers and follow along!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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