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Bouncing Back

December 13, 2018, 11:16 PM ET [200 Comments]
Karine Hains
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Unlike Tuesday night in Minnesota, the Canadiens were in the building tonight and came ready to play against the Hurricanes. After the 7-1 loss to the Wild, Claude Julien tweaked his formation; Nicolas Deslauriers was a healthy scratch and Matthew Peca took his roster spot while Dave Schlemko was left out of the line-up to make room for Mike Reilly. As for Charles Hudon, he's still patiently waiting for another shot...

The Canadiens dominated the 1st shot wise with 12 to the Canes' 4 but neither team managed to score in the first frame and both team went back to the room scoreless. There was however one worrying moment in that period when Paul Byron left the game in a hurry to get to the locker room but he was back on the ice shortly after. I'm sure the coaches were happy to see him back considering how badly the Canadiens played when number 41 was injured.

The Canes seemed determined to do better in the second period and they took the lead early on when the second overall pick on the last entry draft Andrei Svechnikov literally flew past Shea Weber before making his way in front of Price and scoring a beauty of a goal. That lead would hold into the second half of the period when Matthew Peca (brownie points to Claude Julien for dressing him tonight) managed to fool him with a quick shot from the slot. 3 minutes later, Jeff Petry gave the Habs a 2-1 lead that Svechnikov would erase 23 seconds into the last period. The 2-2 score was short lived however since Brendan Gallagher made it 3-2 Habs a little over 20 seconds later and the Habs would never look back winning the game 6-4.





The last period saw 7 goals be scored and even though Carey Price did give up 4 goals tonight, he was in superb form and especially solid when he needed to be in the last two periods. His .871 save percentage for the night doesn't do justice to his performance. That being said, Price has now won his last 4 starts and his looking increasingly like the goaltender the Habs gave over 10 million a season to.

Tonight's win was Claude Julien's 599 and while he was happy with the result, he's aware that it was by no means perfect. The Hurricanes lacked discipline tonight and got themselves 6 penalties but the Canadiens were unable to score a single power play goal. At least, they did not give up any shorthanded ones. Julien had modified his power play units, having put Jeff Petry on the first one alongside Shea Weber and with the teams' best forwards: Domi, Drouin and Gallagher and Paul Byron finally had a chance on the second one. It will be interesting to see if Julien keeps these new units or if he will return to the drawing table before the match-up against the Sens Saturday.

It was a very tough night for Brett Kulak he was on the ice for 16 minutes and 34 seconds and managed to give the puck away twice, looked out of position several times and reminded us that he was in the AHL not so long ago. Makes me wonder if Claude Julien will send him up to the press gallery next game and have someone else audition with Shea Weber. On the bright side for the defence core, Jeff Petry scored 2 goals tonight (alright the second one was lucky and in an empty net), had 7 shots on net and spent over 21 minutes on the ice. Personally, I believe it's time to get Petry in the conversation for the unsung hero award that is the Jacques Beauchamp trophy. Of course, there's still a lot of hockey to be played before awards are handed out but Petry has been so important to this team in the last year.

The Senators will be in Montreal Saturday and will more than likely be keen to avenge the 2 5-2 loses they suffered against the Habs last week.
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