They say the third time's the charm and it most certainly was for Carey Price last night. He played well in Colorado on Wednesday but a silly mistake of his made the momentum turn and the Avs never looked back. Last night, Price made no mistake. He was nearly flawless, giving up a single goal and making 36 saves including some very big ones.
Bravo, @CP0031! pic.twitter.com/66ry2PvAqJ
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) December 21, 2018
The Coyotes totally dominated the second period with 15 shots to the Canadiens' 8. At times, it definitely looked like the Habs didn't have enough gas in the tank in their second game in the span of 48 hours. The only one that looked like the energizer bunny out there was the one who played (almost) every minute of this double header. I guess one could add Gallagher as well who played his heart out as usual.
Claude Julien had decided to shake things up last night and used some new lines. The only one that remained intact was the fourth line:
Drouin - Domi - Lehkonen Byron -Danault - Gallagher Tatar-Kotkaniemi-Shaw Agostino - Chaput - Hudon
For a second night in a row, the Canadiens' power play stroke gold when Weber buried one of his patented Weber rockets 22 seconds after the star of the 2nd period. The funny thing is, the Coyotes have the best penalty kill of the league with a 88.3% efficiency. Goes to show that anything can happen on the ice. The Coyotes were not to be outdone though and got their own power play marker just over 6 minutes later and while the rest of the middle period belonged to them, Carey Price stopped everything else.
The game winner belonged to Paul Byron who converted on a nice feed from Philip Danault in the early stages of the third. The rest of the match was much more even than its second frame, both teams getting 8 shots and net but the goalies denied everyone else. In the dying seconds, Shea Weber received a hard check and took exception to it, proceeding to break his stick on his assaillant's back. The Canadiens' captain was clearly not focused on the game anymore and wanted revenge...As all great goaltenders would do, Price seeing that Weber had no stick and had lost his focus, froze the puck. Weber was lucky not to get a penalty on that play. The hit he received was hard but legal and one is definitely not supposed to break their stick on an adversary. One thing's for sure though, if you cross Weber, he can get somewhat mad...Speak to JT Miller, who doesn't remember this:
"Life size" 😂@max_domi #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/LPbxXdLJTm
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) December 20, 2018
As for Alex Galchenyuk he had 2 shots on net and was never really a threat. While many were upset that Bergevin swapped the American for Domi originally, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who is now. One has to admit that Bergevin found his 1st line centre under the Arizona Coyotes' noses and gave them a winger... Well played Mr. GM.
The Habs will be back in action tomorrow in Las Vegas for a rare 4 o'clock ET game, be sure not to miss it as it will be the last one before December 28th, apparently there's this holiday called Christmas that we all celebrate? Only joking, merry Christmas everyone and enjoy the time off (if you have some...)!