Yet another loss for the Habs... With Keith Kinkaid in net, the Canadiens survived regulation but only to succumb during the first minute of overtime leaving the Habs faithful stunned. I guess the fans should have expected it, it's not like the Habs are on a roll but yesterday afternoon, they managed to make the crowd believe, so when Kinkaid gave up that game winning goal near side, a deafening silence fell on the Bell Centre. In their last 4 home games, the Canadiens have now given up 24 goals, that is a franchise record. This 7th loss in a row is not however a record, turns out the 1926 Canadiens lost 12 games in row during the months of February and March...hopefully, the Tricolore doesn't go anywhere near that mark.
There were some positives to be taken from this game though, the Habs barely gave any odd man rush, a rarity lately. Although when the Flyers took the lead 3-2 in the 3rd period, it was on a 3 on 2 a direct result from Cale Fleury being taken out of the play by a hit at the opposite blue line while he didn't have the puck. The power play also managed to generate a goal thanks to a fantastic cross ice feed from Nick Suzuki to Tomas Tatar who didn't miss his chance to score his second goal of the game. That kind of play makes the Pacioretty transaction look better by the day. Both Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen played good games, Armia opening the score within seconds of the initial puck drop (thanks to a Brian Elliott gift it must be said) and taking no less than 9 shots. We even saw the return of the Finnish line when they were both put back on Kotkaniemi's wings. The defensive corps was also better not only in coverage but also blocking more shots than they have been doing lately, preventing 20 pucks from even getting to Kinkaid's net.
Premier tir du match, premier but du match.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 30, 2019
First shot of the game, first goal of the game.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/ZbgfU1Zsvn
Belle passe, Nick.
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 30, 2019
Nice pass, @nsuzuki_37.#GoHabsGo | @tomastatar90 pic.twitter.com/1XuaEKWAfi
Of course, there were also some negatives and a lot of them... The Habs committed 18 giveaways yesterday 15 of which came from the blueliners... The biggest culprits? Weber and Chiarot both had 4 but Jeff Petry takes the cake with 5. It's mind boggling to see Jeff Petry play lately...this is the guy that was picking up the slack early in the season when Weber couldn't handle as many minutes as he normally did and he was without a doubt the Canadiens' best defenseman. In net, Kinkaid stopped 25 of the 29 shots received which gives him a sub par save percentage of .862, I'm going to sound like a broken record but this is just not good enough. While the Habs took 42 shots, they weren't exactly all threatening ones and there were so many errant passes yesterday, plays that are normally easy looked like rocket science for the Habs, the kind of plays that you expect in the preseason, not 25 games in. As for the overtime, well.... The Habs won the initial faceoff and should have controlled play but they managed to go offside at the Flyers blue line, loss then following faceoff and Ivan Povorov did the rest, going coast to coast to score the game winning goal and making Max Domi look like a peewee out there... The Habs' best player last season is not looking like himself right now and things are starting to look grim in a hurry. The Canadiens are 6th in their division and heading fast for another lost season.
THAT. STICK. LIFT. THO. #PHIvsMTL | #FlyOrDie pic.twitter.com/5njlgaq63J
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) November 30, 2019
What's next for Montreal? A duel with Boston tonight which will feature both Carey Price and Tukka Rask. If Montreal wants to have any chance of winning, Price will have to be back to his old self and make the big saves otherwise, there's just no way the Canadiens will leave Boston with anything but a further bruised ego. To make things even worst, Victor Mete will not be playing either as he was injured in yesterday's tilt and did not make the trip to Boston, we can all look forward to either Reilly or Kulak getting back in the line-up. Marc Bergevin is due to travel to Russia soon to meet with Romanov and convince him to sign with the Habs for next season...Anyways he could give a truckload of money to CSKA Moscow to get him out of his current contract and just bring him back right now? It sure feels like the Tricolore could use him, with Mete's injury the already thin left side of the defense is looking like a toxic wasteland.
In other news, Réjean Tremblay reports this morning that Habs legend Guy Lafleur is currently recovering from an operation to treat a lung cancer. We can only hope that the operation will have been a success and that the démon blond will be fine. According to Tremblay the cancer was caught at a really early stage during the preparatory tests for the legend's quadruple bypass surgery last September and it should give him really good odds of complete recovery.