Tonight, the opponent at the Bell Centre wasn't the latest Stanley Cup champion or a regular season powerhouse, it was the poor Minnesota Wild. As I write this, they are 30th in the league and chances are, once the final buzzer goes on the NY-NJ game and the Devils win, they'll be dead last. That being said, there are no free points in the NHL and even though the other team is going through a tough time, you still have to beat them on the ice and the Canadiens made no mistakes tonight.
Straight from the get go, it felt like it would be a good night at the Bell Centre, the Canadiens dominated the first period in pretty much every department with 15 shots while the Wild only managed 6 and scored 3 times in the first frame. 2 of those goals were special and prompted quite the reaction in the building! First, at 14:37 after 126 games with no goal in the NHL, Victor Mete FINALLY found the back of the net on a nice feed from Nick Cousins who got his first assist as a Hab on the play. Just under 3 minutes later, Joel Armia score on the power play on a pretty nifty tic-tac-toe although it's worth mentioning that the Wild were down to 3 players on the play. Before the period ended, we saw another first, this one was Suzuki's. Well positioned by the side of the net, Suzuki took advantage of a deflected shot and backhanded it right into the net.
The second period was far from being an exciting affair with 7 shots from the Habs to the Wild's 6 and no one managed to put another goal on the board. In fact, the sole highlight of the second frame was probably Joel Eriksson Ek blocking not 1, not 2 but 3 Shea Weber slappers on a power play in a row. The Montreal crowd couldn't help but cheer for the Wild player who appeared to be both courageous and insane all at once. Needless to say that he had to leave the game.
The third saw the Habs notch another goal to make it 4-0 which would stand as the final score. The Canadiens shot 11 times in the last period while the Wild put only 5 pucks on Price's net who recorded his 45th career shutout. That was probably is easiest ever since he only received 17 shots and the Canadiens were oh so much better than they have been lately defensively.
Of course, no-one is thinking of planning the parade because the Canadiens beat the last team in the league but tonight, the penalty kill was flawless and that was mighty nice to see. The power play also produced a goal and Cale Fleury did pretty well in his return to the line-up. He wasn't on the scoresheet and he took an unlucky high-sticking penalty but he also had 1 shot, 4 hits and 3 blocks. Furthermore, he joined the attack on a few occasions and displayed pretty good decision making. Overall, this was a nice bounce back effort from the Habs and it will be interesting to see if they can take that momentum on the road as they take on the Blues on Saturday afternoon and the Wild again on Sunday.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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