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The Montreal Canadiens sure know how to spoil a guy’s homecoming.
Forward Anthony Mantha, who was born in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil, Que., made his season debut for the Detroit Red Wings Saturday at the Bell Centre but the buzz created by the arrival of Detroit’s 2013 first-round draft pick quickly subsided as the Canadiens scored three first-period goals en route to blowing away the Wings by a 5-0 count.
“Obviously it’s a difficult night when you lose 5-0,” Mantha said. “I don’t think that we played the way we wanted to play.”
The Wings followed an all-too-familiar script for failure. They were second best in most one-on-one puck battles. Unable to deal with Montreal’s relentless forecheck, Detroit once again struggled to break the puck out of its own end. And the Wings made far too many unforced errors, including two penalties in short succession in the first period that resulted in a Shea Weber five-on-three power-play goal.
“Obviously, not good enough in a lot of different areas,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “I was disappointed. We’ve got to compete harder than we competed here tonight in terms of just winning one-on-one battles, getting to pucks first, all those types of things.
“I’ll go through a litany of things we’ve got to get better at. At the end the day, it’s not good enough.”
Montreal Malaise
Now that they’ve ended their long skid in Philadelphia, the Wings need to rectify their moribund performances in Montreal.
Saturday’s loss dropped the Wings to 0-4-2 in their last six games at the Bell Centre.
Detroit's last win in Montreal was a 2-1 overtime victory on Feb. 26, 2014. It was so long ago that Todd Bertuzzi scored one of Detroit's goals and Johan Franzen assisted on both goals. Bertuzzi’s nephew Tyler Bertuzzi played for the Wings in Saturday’s setback.
“I think they did a lot better in front of our net than we did in front of theirs,” said Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard, who allowed all five goals in 40 minutes work before giving way to Petr Mrazek in the third period. “They got their sticks on a lot of rebounds and they made a lot of good plays.
“They’re hounding the puck all night. They’re a fast team through the neutral zone and they got in on the forecheck. They’re tough to get off the puck, to knock off the puck. They showed why they’re playing so great.”
With Montreal’s win Saturday, the Canadiens opened up 10-0 at home for the first time in franchise history. They were 9-0 to start the season in 1953-54. That spring, they lost the Stanley Cup final in seven games to the Red Wings.
Power Outage
The Wings went 0-for-5 on the power play, failing to score during a four-minute man advantage in the second period and are now in the midst of a 1-for-18 slump.
“I thought we had a few decent chances,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “I thought (Montreal goalie Carey) Price made some stops there but a four-minute power play, you want to get one there.
“If you get one then maybe it’s a little different outcome.”
Perhaps the power outage stems from an overall goal drought that is afflicting much of the team. Riley Sheahan has yet to score this season in 16 games, while Mike Green (13 games), Darren Helm (11 games), Gustav Nyquist (10 games), Frans Nielsen (eight games) and Drew Miller (eight games) are also enduring goalless skids. Luke Glendening has one goal in 16 games, Steve Ott has one goal in 13 games and Tomas Tatar one goal in 11 games.
“We’ve got a group of character guys in the locker room, we’ve got to go to work on Monday and find a way to be better,” Blashill said. “Frustration does nothing.
“We’ve got to look at the game and we got to say we go to decide we’ll be better.”
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