The table was set for a great night at the Bell Centre as the Canadiens honoured the newly inducted to the Hall of Fame Guy Carbonneau with a spot on the ring of honour. If there's one thing this organisation knows how to do, it's tributes. They showed a lovely video paying respect to Carbonneau with plenty of kind words from a few legends and of course, the Canadiens' faithful gave Carbo quite the ovation which left him struggling to hold back the tears.
That's a lot of love from a lot of legends. â¤ï¸
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 21, 2019
Check out the pregame video that played tonight at the Bell Centre in honor of Guy Carbonneau's induction to the @HockeyHallFame.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/y9k1q1gt6z
Guy Carbonneau fait maintenant officiellement partie de l’Anneau d’honneur au Centre Bell. 🤩
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 21, 2019
Guy Carbonneau officially joins the Hall of Famers in the Bell Centre ring of honor.#GoHabsGo #HHOF #HHOF2019 pic.twitter.com/BadWesWx6O
The Habs saw themselves have to kill a 4 minutes power play not even a minute in when Mete was given a double minor for high sticking. Thankfully, the Sens have an abysmal power play and Montreal didn't struggle to run the clock. No one scored in the first but the Habs had 12 shots to the Sens' 3, 16 hits to the Sens' 9 and 7 takeaways to Ottawa's 3.
The Habs had a power play at the end of the first which ran over to the start of the 2nd and they didn't miss their chance. With Tatar, Danault, Gallagher and Petry on the ice for the man advantage, it was Nick Suzuki who not only orchestrated the build up to the goal but put the puck in himself.
La célébration de Nick Suzuki est tellement ð˜¤ð˜©ð˜ªð˜ð˜ qu'on pourrait prendre froid.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 21, 2019
Nick Suzuki’s goal celebration is so chill we might catch a draft.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/tv6kPoxUj2
Unfortunately, the Habs weren't able to get a second goal and the Canadiens' achilles heel, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, is having himself quite a month of Novembre. So it came as no big surpise when he deflected a shot to beat Price and send everyone back to square one. After 40 minutes, the Tricolore had 25 shots to the Sens' 14, 25 hits to Ottawa's 20 and 14 takeaways to DJ Smith's men'6. But the important stat is that it was 1-1 on the scoreboard.
The Canadiens didn't come out strong in the 3rd, in fact, Ottawa was the driving force at the start of the period and while they didn't score, they did manage to get the Tricolore on their heels. Both sides had 9 shots but no one could break the deadlock. Until Brady Tkatchuk took off in OT to beat Carey Price between the pads on a breakaway.
So, for once, Carey Price played both games of a back to back and the Canadiens only managed to salvage a point. Should they miss the playoffs this year, we will all be looking back to those games in which they battled weak team but didn't have the killer instinct to put them down.
On the plus side: -Price was definitely better tonight than he was last night; -Cale Fleury landed a bone crushing hit on Namestnikov in the first and saved a goal in the second, he's playing with more confidence by the minute; -Once again tonight, Mete was confident out there and taking good decisions; -Nick Suzuki played so well that he even had more ice time than Gallagher, Domi and Tatar to name a few.
Montreal will be back on the ice on Saturday when they'll host the Rangers. Until then, let's hope Claude Julien finds a way to way up his anemic offense because this is going to get ugly in a hurry if the Tricolore cannot score more...