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Game 6: Canadiens vs Lightning AKA A Costly Couple of Minutes |
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Since I had the day off yesterday, I decided to make the drive up to Brossard very early and attempt to catch a few of the Habs' players on their way to the morning skate. As some of you know, I'm a collector and I wanted to get some items signed so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone. Thankfully, not many people had the same idea and my friend Jean-Claude and I were the only two people there. We saw every single player arrive but most of them didn't stop...The ones I wanted to stop did however and I was able to get my Price and Drouin poplin banners signed and my Domi game used glove as well. While I'm very happy with the result, I must say that I'm always surprised how taciturn Price is when he does stop. He signs your item and says nothing even if you do try to engage him into a conversation. Drouin and Domi however are much more chatty, even if they were the last two to arrive and slightly in a rush. Heck Domi didn't even go park his truck himself because he was so last minute.
The morning skate was a short affair, most players were on the ice at 10:50 and Drouin lead the closing stretching session at 11:20. During those 30 minutes, there were a few line rushes, some PK work and a session of one timer shots for the defensemen (Petry spent a good 5 minutes slapping the puck straight from the spot from which he scored on about 8 hours later). It became clear that Suzuki would be in the line-up in the end since Cousins was back as being the extra and that Cale Fleury would once again be watching the game from up above. The lines and pairing looked as follows (in the morning in any case):
Tatar - Danault - Gallagher
Lehkonen - Domi - Weal
Drouin - Kotkaniemi - Armia
Byron - Thompson - Suzuki
Cousins
Mete - Weber
Kulak - Petry
Chiarot - Folin
Reilly - Fleury
When the puck dropped at 19:00, the Canadiens looked ready. In fact, not only did they get the first goal of the game when Petry scored on the power play at 15:46 but with only 2 minutes to go in the period, they'd only allowed 3 shots from the Lightning which was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, the minute I said that to my friend, the Lightning turned it on. For almost 2 full minutes, the Drouin-KK-Armia line was stuck in the defensive zone while Price was peppered with shots and with 7 seconds to go in the first frame, a Coburn slap-shot found its way behind Price, sending everyone back to the locker room with a 1-1 score.
While the fans were hoping that the Canadiens would get their head back in the game for the start of the second period, it just wasn't to be and within 2 minutes of the start of the second, the Bolts had added two goals. At 3-1, the Lightning just closed the play and suffocated the Habs for the rest of the game and went away with the 2 points.
It wasn't a great game for the Drouin-KK-Armia line and that line was on for both of the Bolts' even strength and that meant that in the third, Julien had decided to put Kotkaniemi down on the 4th line as a winger... Now that, is not something I liked to see. It was way to reminiscent of the way things went down with Alex Galchenyuk...Hopefully this was a one off and we'll not see it again.
That being said, it wasn't a great game for the defence corps either...Shea Weber did not even play 20 minutes last night and thank God for that because he was struggling and so was his partner Victor Mete. Both of them were one the ice alongside KK's line for the 2 even strength goals. They each had two giveaways and the captain didn't even record a single hit last night, a painful reminder that you cannot hit what you cannot catch and the speedy Lightning was just too quick for the Habs' captain.
In the end, the Canadiens didn't play too badly last night for about 57 minutes but a game lasts a full 60 minutes and those 3 minutes were just fatal. The Canadiens put 34 shots on Vasilevskiy's net last night but only managed to scored 1 goal on the power play even though they had 5 man-advantage. You just cannot afford to waste so many opportunities if you want to top the Bolts, it's just not going to happen. As for the Lightning, they only had one power play but it took them only 33 seconds to get the puck behind Price off a patented Stamkos shot from the face-off dot.
This morning in Brossard, most were glad to see that Kotkaniemi had reintegrated his spot on the third line alongside Drouin and Armia but there were some new combinations as well:
Tatar - Danault - Gallagher
Lehkonen - Domi - Byron
Drouin - Kotkaniemi - Armia
Weal - Thompson - Suzuki - Cousins
Mete - Weber
Kulak - Petry
Chiarot - Folin
Reilly - Fleury
Jordan Weal will now find himself on the 4th line and finally, Paul Byron will bring his speed on the second line. To be honest, I believe this will bring great results since number 41 has got 2 20+ goal seasons to his name and one of 15 goal which is much more than what Weal can say. After today's practice, Claude Julien acknowledge that the Habs are looking for a left-handed d-man, admitting that right now, he's just working with what he has.
Tomorrow, the Canadiens will host to Minnesota Wild who has only got 1 win and 2 points in 6 games and needless to say that this will be a must win dual. With last night's loss, the Habs are 20th overall in the league and while the season is young, the sooner they right the ship, the better.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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