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In Hainsight: The Veterans Showed Up |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
As the Canadiens celebrated Pride Night yesterday, they invited a surprise national anthem singer as Debbie Lynch-White took the microphone. The actress is a prominent figure in the LGBTQIA+ community and is also a trained singer as she demonstrated when she played “La Bolduc” in the 2018 motion picture titled after the legendary French-Canadian singer. After a couple of games in which the Canadiens looked apathetic, they actually played with pride last night and put on quite a show.
The Capitals took the lead early in the first period but last night really belonged to the Habs. With more than half the first-choice players still sitting in the press gallery, the veterans that were in the line-up stepped up. Joel Armia who’s only played 40 games this season had himself a night, scoring a hat trick which included a shorthanded goal and an empty netter. It was the Finn’s second career hat trick, his first one having been in March 2019 against the Rangers. This morning, some are wondering where Armia’s been in the other 39 games, but he was there and he was himself, it’s last night’s performance that was the oddity. He might have been a first pick, but he just can’t perform consistently in the NHL, it’s a shame, but it is what it is and if he was to finally manage to perform evenly, I’d be completely shocked to be honest.
Armia wasn’t the only one to get a shorthanded marker, as captain Nick Suzuki took off on a breakaway and had the better of Darcy Kuemper. That’s one takeaway from this season, Suzuki has quite a knack for scoring one on one with the goalie, whether it is in a game situation or in the shootout, the captain has got wonderful hands, slick Nick indeed. With a goal and an assist, he now has 63 points on the season, a personal best for him. Chances are though, if he could have had his right-hand man along for the ride all season, Suzuki would have got a lot more helpers on Caufield’s snipes and he probably would have been a point per game player, somewhat of a rarity in Montreal. Fear not Habs fans, it’s coming, the future is bright.
Brendan Gallagher and Mike Hoffman also found the back of the net while Mike Matheson recorded 3 assists keeping up his strong play even in the tail end of a lost season. Meanwhile, Samuel Montembeault played another good game stopping 24 of the 26 shots he faced to earn his 16th win of the season overtaking Jake Allen in this category as the veteran has got 15 triumphs to his name this year.
The two points collected allowed the Canadiens to leapfrog the Coyotes in the standing and they are now 27th, both teams have got 3 games to go and finishing 28th gives better lottery odds than 27th but there’s a single percentage point difference between the two ranks, so at this stage, it matters very little. Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera as the song goes...
The Canadiens will now take on the Toronto Maple Leafs tomorrow at the Air Canada center before closing out their season with an away game against the Islanders on Wednesday and the final home game on Thursday against the President Trophy champions, the Boston Bruins.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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