Canadiens Lose Close Game to Bruins + Danault Hit In Head By Chara Shot (Pacioretty)

Pacioretty

Canadiens Lose Close Game to Bruins + Danault Hit In Head By Chara Shot

By Brandon Smillie

Jan 13, 2018 • 5:23 pm

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The Habs had a classic rival at the Bell Centre for Saturday nights game and with it an unfortunate injury. With the Bruins in town, P Danault was the unfortunate recipient of a Chara snap shot, measured at over 120 km/h, to the left side of his helmet and he was removed from the ice on a stretcher for precautionary reasons. The shot would have been extremely high and likely out of play or hitting the top of the glass. It was a terrible shot with unfortunate consequences.

The Bruins and Habs will play the closest thing to an in season playoff series over the next 8 days as they play 3 times in that span. With any luck, the Canadiens can seriously humble the hot Bruins while still remaining in top draft choice contention.

Now the recap.

The Canadiens and Bruins played a pretty exciting game for the fans with the Canadiens jumping out to the early 1-0 lead at 3:22 of the first on a slick tuck in goal by Pacioretty from some good work by Mete and Danault. It was Pacioretty’s 11th of the season and he has now scored a goal in 3 straight games.

The goal was negated on a Boston PP at 17:40 of the first from a goal by Marchand. The Bruins carried that momentum into the beginning of the 2nd as they took the lead on rookie J DeBrusk’s 10th of the season at 2:55 of the 2nd.

The Habs had a quick answer named Deslaurier as he picked off an outlet pass by Chara, turned in the neutral zone, skated back right past the rapidly aging Chara, and ripped a wrist shot past Rask from just beyond the hash marks for his 5th of the season at the 5:45 mark.

This was followed up perfectly just over 3 minutes later on the PP by a perfect laser wrist shot from Galchenyuk at the face off dot for his 11th of the season and 100th of his career. Drouin set him up with a beauty cross ice pass to the wide open Galchenyuk who had all day to take a few strides into his wrist shot that ripped past Rask’s ears.

The Canadiens tried to hold on to reach the intermission but it was a fortunate bouncing puck in the slot that was fired home by Krejci at the 17:42 mark to tie the game at 3’s.

It was shortly after this goal, at 18:33 of the 2nd when Danault was in the wrong place at the wrong time for the super high Chara one timer off the helmet. The period was called after Danault was attended to by trainers for some time before he was eventual removed from the ice via stretcher. Of all people to have injure a Hab it had to be Chara, and of all the Habs that could have been hit it had to be the teams best all round center.

I feel like this season, no matter how hard the Canadiens fight back, no matter how much they try to gut out hockey games in the face of terrible luck/bounces/etc, they are always met with a big gut punch. It must be an incredibly frustrating season as a professional on the ice, and off it, to see the adversity that is constantly thrown at this group.

One thing is for sure, this is the kind of season that should build character. There is a lot of season left and a lot of teams that will be looking for easy points against the Canadiens with little respect for their opponent.

The 1:27 that remained on the clock was played just before the start of the 3rd period and the Habs looked a bit stunned as it was also revealed that Danault was being taken to the Hospital via ambulance.

The game began to resemble the spirited affair it was before the gruesome shot to Danault’s head and at the 16 minute mark of the 3rd the Canadiens Twitter stated that Danault was conscious and moving, but would be attending the Hospital for further examination and precautionary reasons. As a viewer, this update came as a relief and I can only imagine what his team on the bench would feel after receiving an update on Danault.

The game was fairly back and forth until the Habs found themselves hemmed in after a 4 on 4 sequence but Price was huge kicking out all the scramble shots in front of him to preserve the tie.

The Canadiens received a glorious opportunity to put the game away late in the 3rd period after rookie C McAvoy of the Bruins took a needless run at Hudon who had just dumped the puck. Hudon ducked under the incoming high hit by McAvoy and the rookie found himself checking to see if his nose was still straight after getting an unclose look at the top of the boards. McAvoy obviously felt he hadn’t embarrassed himself enough on the play and proceeded to trip Hudon with the puck long gone and putting the Habs on the PP at 14:58 of the 3rd.

Unfortunately the Canadiens couldn’t capitalize as most of the scoring chances came short handed from the Bruins before they killed it off completely after the Habs failed to generate any kind of attack.

The Bruins played the “Make so many dirty plays as possible so the refs only call the REALLY bad ones… style and it didn’t work so well for the Canadiens. Perhaps the worst example was late in the 3rd when Marchand looked to drive Drouin’s head into the ice along the boards with both forearms and no attempt to play the puck. But the NHL loves looking bush league so of course it went uncalled.

The remainder of the period saw limited chances before ending and giving way to the 3 on 3 OT session.

The OT began with a break away opportunity for Marchand early but he was caught swiftly on a huge back check and stick check. To negate the opportunity. Drouin almost split the D to end it shortly after that but the puck came back into Montreal’s end where Mete had to stand toe to toe with Pasternak, after catching him from behind, in front of Price to prevent any rubber heading at Price.

That was the first two minutes.

Mete broke in on a 2 on 1 late with Drouin but couldn’t squeeze the pass through in front of the net for a opportunity for Drouin. The Bruins charged back and capitalized on a very long shift by Mete that was met by a visibly invigorated glove save by Price.

The Canadiens looked to end it with seconds left in the game as Pacioretty threw a pass back to Jerabek for a brilliant look from the slot who’s shot snuck behind Rask, but a diving Krug kept the puck from carrying its momentum into the net and was followed by a made scramble of pinball puck before being cleared away. The OT subsequently ended and the game was forced to play out the shoot out.

P Byron was the first shooter out the gate and buried the glove side shot past Rask.

Dubrusk followed with his own goal that was similar to Byron’s.

Drouin came next but was stopped glove side by Rask.

Pasternak took the long road in on his shot, at a slow pace, and when he finally arrived at the door step Price simply poked the puck away.

Pacioretty came in with a chance to bring the house down but was stopped glove side by Rask.

McAvoy came in thinking he could fool Price with a five hole play, but he was wrong. Save.

Galchenyuk was next and was the first Habs to try some side to side dekes before being stopped by a sprawling Rask.

Marchand was next and came in with a head of steam before throwing a low wrist shot from the slot just under the right leg of Price.

The Bruins won the game and are unbeaten in regulation in their last 12 games (9-0-3).

The Canadiens meanwhile are 2-0-1 in their last three and are showing some signs of life. Unfortunately it appears Danault may be unavailable for a significant period of time and with that a foundational hole of the roster was magnified again. Really though, I just hope Danault is OK and able to recover swiftly and to 100%.

The Habs played a pretty good game and the goaltending was incredible tonight. If not for the Danault injury this would have been one of the most entertaining Canadiens games of the season.

Next up the Canadiens face rookie point leader Matt Barzal and the New York Islanders. They also have some really good guy named Tavares that everyone seems to like to talk about. We will see how that Habs look Monday night at the Bell Centre for the 7:30 pm game.

Go Habs Go!

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