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In Hainsight: Squandered Lead and Spectacular Defeat

December 6, 2022, 5:22 PM ET [297 Comments]
Karine Hains
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey

Once again last night, the Canadiens weren’t ready to play when the puck dropped. For the first 6 minutes of the game, the Canucks were alone on the ice with Samuel Montembeault who faced an onslaught of shots. By the time the Habs started playing, the shots were 9-1 Vancouver, and the game could already have been lost.

This is when the Tricolore woke up from a deep slumber to score 4 goals in the span of less than 10 minutes and went back to the locker room with a 4-0 lead. In all honesty, for those 10 minutes, the Sainte-Flanelle literally “Brazilled” the Canucks, those who have been watching the World Cup will understand the reference. Even the 4th line was able to hold the puck in the offensive zone and cycle to keep the pressure on.

Unfortunately for the Canadiens though, a hockey game is at least 60 minutes long and no lead is safe in hockey. Slowly but surely, the Canucks clawed their way back into this one getting 2 goals back late in the second period and 3 quick ones to start the third and take a 5-4 lead. This is when Martin St-Louis finally decided to call a much-needed timeout. I thought it might have been too late for that, but his men responded and scored twice to regain the lead. With less than 2 minutes to go, Kovacevic took a tripping penalty and Vancouver brought everyone back to square one with a power play goal as their net was empty.

As for the overtime, it didn’t last for long, the Habs won the draw and Mike Matheson was skating with the puck when he somehow tripped and fell to the ice, losing possession and allowing Pettersson to go in all alone against Montembeault and seal the Canucks’ 7-6 win 13 seconds in. Let’s get one thing straight, I do not think Matheson is terrible, but sometimes he does try to do too much, even though it wasn’t the case in this instance. There was no reason for him to fall like he did, but in the end, the Canadiens didn’t deserve to win this game and perhaps the hockey gods decided to lend a hand.

In a year where the focus is on development, the young Habs got a few important lessons last night: you have to be ready to play the second the puck hits the ice (this one, they really should know by now), there is no safe lead in hockey, you just cannot take your foot off the pedal and fall asleep at the wheel, if you do, you’ll pay for it.

Individually, I’m hoping that Juraj Slafkovsky has finally learnt that he needs to keep his head up and protect himself wherever he is on the ice, even when you are passing the puck as you’re skating behind the net, an opponent can still land a big hit on you, and it will hurt that much more if you do not see it coming.

The Canadiens’ didn’t just lose the game last night though, they also lost Sean Monahan who left the game. He had been walking with a protective cast for a few days now, but just before he made his way to the locker room on his last shift, we saw him noticeably wince as he was skating. I’m hoping the Canadiens will have the common sense to play it safe with the 28-year-old center. He’s done very well so far this season and it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that they could flip him to another team for yet another 1st round pick. They can only do that if he’s healthy though, it’s not time to take a silly gamble.



On the bright side of things, Caufield and Suzuki both scored their 14th goal of the season last night and no one can say that this late game was a boring one. Furthermore, the power play was impressive last night and since emphasis is on developing and not winning this season, this is not catastrophic, but it did highlight some areas of concern. If you have some Canucks’ fans in your inner circle though, expect to hear about this game for a long time… They did pull quite the comeback and won in spectacular fashion, after all, we’re still talking about our own 0-5 comeback against the Rangers back in 2008.
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