The team did not deserve that win but Carey Price did. In a season where we've heard plenty of the talking heads on RDS say that: "Carey Price is just not stealing games for them" he proved them wrong tonight. Price faced 39 shots and stopped them all but 2 for a save percentage of .949 on the night. In fact, Price has started the last 7 games and in that span, he's only allowed 16 goals...funny what happens when the team's number 1 defenseman comes back from injury and solidifies the defence core.
Price was brilliant tonight, the same cannot be said for everyone. While the Blackhawks have a truly awful power play this season (last in the league at just over 11% success rate) the Canadiens asked for trouble by getting 8 minor penalties (one of which was a high sticking double minor) and Tatar even got himself 3 penalties. Before you say that the refs are crap and the usual diatribe that fans always bring up, they were deserved. There were no bad calls, no play acting by the Hawks, nothing of the like. If Carey Price isn't stellar tonight, the Canadiens do not stand a chance. Not only was there a flagrant lack of discipline but they looked like they were taking a nap at the start of the second period. We've seen them forget to start the game on time but this untimely nap is just as bad.
On the blue line, David Schlemko cost the Habs the first goal, Jordie Benn managed to fan not on a shot but on a pass in his own zone and Mike Reilly set-up a wonderful scoring chance...for the wrong team. The later seems to be on Julien's black list and since Noah Juulsen appears ready to go, it wouldn't be surprising to see Reilly back on the press gallery and Juulsen in the line-up in Minnesota Tuesday.
On the bright side, Max Domi scored tonight (his 14th of the season which is just 4 short of his career best in a campaign), Shea Weber unleashed the mother of all Weber Rockets on an unsuspecting Corey Crawford for the Habs second goal and Tatar, no doubt feeling guilty for his hat trick of penalties, managed to deflect a Petry shot for the game winning goal with just minutes to go in the third period.
You can fault the Canadiens for not giving a good show this year but the game was somewhat irritating to watch with all the penalties and the 10 minutes of sleep skating, that being said, we forget that quickly when they skate away with the win! For the first time since mid October, the Habs have a 3 game winning streak and it will be interesting to see if they can keep it going come Tuesday. Hang in there people, only two more working weeks before the Christmas break!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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