The visitors who showed up at the Bell Centre last night should have been tired, being on its 3rd game in 4 days but it wasn't. The Coyotes were a worthy opponent and the Habs needed everything they had to win, including some help from the Hockey Gods and technology.
The Canadiens started the game on the back foot, chasing the puck at all times and when they weren't busy chasing it, it was because they were busy turning it over. Thankfully Carey Price was ready in net and made up for all those turnovers. Price ended the game with a solid 30 saves and recorded his 20th win of the season. He joins Plante and Roy with 9 20 win seasons for the Habs. It really wasn't Artturi Lehkonen's best game, in the first period alone, he committed 3 turnovers. Normally, Lehkonen does struggle to convert on his offensive opportunity but he's at least defensively sound, it wasn't the case yesterday. On the flip side though, Joel Armia probably had his best game of the season last night (if you overlook his almost costly penalty with 5 minutes to go in the game). On a line with Kotkaniemi and Hudon, Armia displayed a lot of strength and puck control. He looked like he was everywhere on the penalty killing and was insanely successful forechecking in the dying minutes of the game.
Other positive of that game, the Habs finally scored a power play goal! Hurray! Funnily enough, they did so against the best penalty killing in the league. That's right, the Coyotes have a 86.9% success rate on the PK and the Canadiens moribund power play managed to break through. To be fair though, they had made some adjustments. Both power play units had been reshuffled and the players involved were the following:
Unit 1: Drouin - Kotkaniemi- Armia - Tatar - Weber Unit 2: Hudon - Domi - Gallagher - Reilly - Petry
The manner in which it was deployed also changed, Weber went behind the net and started taking the puck up ice with all forwards skating ahead of him, no one was hanging back for a back pass. The centre was clogged but the two wingers were free to receive the pass and make an in motion and in control zone entry and then, the power play could finally settle in the zone. There was a lot of passing, making the defensive box move and Weber who was at the top of the zone straight opposite the net was able to not only receive the puck but unleash a couple of his huge shots. They ended up being off target but Tatar was brilliant in handling those rebounds off the board and either passing them or shooting. That's how the Drouin goal came to be, a big booming off target Weber shot, Coyotes trying to handle the rebound off the boards only to lose the puck to Tatar who set up Drouin on the other side of the net for an easy goal. It wasn't the prettiest power play goal but it still counts.
J🎯nathan Drouin!#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/UdZ3ojeyr4
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 24, 2019
That was Drouin's 3rd power play goal of the season and I believe everyone was relieved to see it get by the goalie. The second power play wasn't as successful but perfection was not needed, just an encouraging sign was pretty nice to get!
Late in the 3rd while Joel Armia was just coming out of the penalty box for a high stick and the Habs were hanging on to a 2-1 lead (thanks to a nice Petry play which resulted in a Reilly goal), Galchenyuk stroke a puck mid-air to get it past Price and tie the game up. Unfortunately for him, during the Coyotes power play, the Habs had noticed an offside that wasn't called so they challenged the goal and it was waved off. It's almost weird to see a challenge go the Canadiens' way but we'll sure take it! The rest of the period was spent trying to kill the dying minutes with success and the Tricolore skated away with the all important 2 points which allowed them to leapfrog the Bruins in the standings and land at 3rd in the Atlantic division. Which means that they'll enter their 10 day break in a great mood and so will we:
I believe they call that sitting pretty in 3rd :) #gohabsgo pic.twitter.com/jRlRkzWKj0
— Karine Hains (@Pheebs888) January 24, 2019
The players are now free for a while and we won't see them back on the ice for a game until the 2nd of February...I can feel some serious withdrawals symptoms coming....