After ending their road trip on a loss on Thursday, the Habs returned home to face Columbus on Saturday. It took until the third period for Montreal to take control but they did just that, collecting a 5-1 win for their efforts.
Martin St. Louis made one change to his lineup from the game against the Wild as Justin Barron returned after being a healthy scratch for the last six games. He was supposed to take the place of Jayden Struble but those plans were changed when David Savard was scratched with an upper-body injury. The team lined up as follows:
Slafkovsky – Suzuki – Dach
Newhook – Evans – Caufield
Anderson – Dvorak – Gallagher
Heineman – Condotta – Armia
Hutson – Matheson
Matheson – Barron
Xhekaj – Struble
10 Thoughts
1) With Columbus on the back half of a back-to-back and in their third game in four nights, a good start was important. Cole Caufield getting called for slashing two minutes in didn’t help that. On the penalty kill, Jake Evans failed to clear twice but made up for it on his next shift, eventually drawing a slashing call on Damon Severson to end the power play and eventually give Montreal an advantage.
2) For someone with as good of a shot as Mike Matheson has, you had to think he was going to get a goal soon. It turns out this was the game to break the ice. Kirby Dach’s cross-ice feed was off the mark, instead hitting Jake Christiansen. However, the puck then went to Caufield who was able to tee up Matheson for a one-timer that beat Daniil Tarasov clean. (Random tidbit alert, Tarasov’s father, Vadim, was a seventh-round pick of the Habs back in 1999.)
3) Sean Monahan never got to play with Lane Hutson as he was moved to Winnipeg last season well before Hutson turned pro. Clearly, he decided he wanted to get a feel for Hutson-mania as he stole the youngsters’ stick away off a faceoff, earning himself an interference call in the process on a play you don’t see every day. Montreal controlled the puck on the power play – their third of the period – but couldn’t get much through. Still, they were able to move the puck around at will and players weren’t stationary which was good to see.
4) One thing Emil Heineman has been asked to do this season is play with a lot of physicality to fit his role on the fourth line. He did just that with a hard hit on Kevin Labanc. However, Labanc got up and went right to the front of the net. Heineman followed and the two provided the perfect screen for Dante Fabbro’s shot to get past Samuel Montembeault to tie the game. I’ve seen several replays and I still haven’t seen it go in clean; that was about as perfect of a screen as there is.
5) Not long after the goal, Arber Xhekaj and Mathieu Olivier decided it was time for a staged fight, one that may or may not have been related to a hit on Sean Kuraly earlier. It was a spirited tilt for sure although it didn’t have any real bearing on the game.
6) Xhekaj did make an important hockey play not long after getting back from the fight. He sent a good pass from the defensive zone up to Joel Armia in the neutral zone. He flipped a pass to Nick Suzuki who skated laterally, waiting for a shooting lane to open up. Ivan Provorov eventually gave him that lane and Suzuki was able to beat Tarasov to restore the lead. While it wasn’t a great goal for Tarasov to allow, Suzuki has a good shot and often hasn’t been willing to shoot. Maybe seeing one of these go in helps convince him to fire a bit more often.
7) The Canadiens are a team that doesn’t exactly have a lot of confidence so I was interested to see if they’d come out and put the pedal down, so to speak, or if they’d sit back. They didn’t do either but they were sound defensively and took advantage of the chances that Columbus gave them.
8) One of those came just past the midway point of the third. Heineman intercepted a pass from Provorov and got a hard shot on Tarasov. The save was made and the puck was sent to the corner. Damon Severson tried to reverse it but put it right on the stick of Joel Armia. He quickly found Lucas Condotta who one-timed home his second career NHL goal. While I’m happy for Condotta, I can’t quite help but feel a little sad for Michael Pezzetta whose faint chances of getting into the lineup anytime soon just got weaker.
9) The Habs took advantage of another giveaway a few shifts later. Cole Sillinger’s clearing attempt went off Jake Evans and bounced to the side boards where Caufield was there to pick it up. He skated in and waited for Evans to drive the net before sending a perfect cross-ice feed and Evans chipped it in. Earlier this week, I wrote about how Caufield showed he was capable of impacting the game beyond his goals last season but hadn’t done a lot of that this year. This was a game where he made an impact beyond the goals.
10) After Kaiden Guhle drew a penalty to nullify a late power play (Adam Fantilli knocked his stick right out of his hands…what was it with the Blue Jackets and sticks?), the Canadiens made quick work off the ensuing draw with all four players getting involved. Alex Newhook won the draw, Lane Hutson got it across to Matheson and his blast was tipped in by Anderson, capping a solid and defensively uneventful final frame to end the week on a strong note.
HW Habs 3 Stars
1st Star: Mike Matheson – I know some of the underlying numbers don’t help his cause but this was the game I was waiting for from him for a while now. When he’s on, he can be impactful in the offensive zone and a difference-maker defensively (on the good side, not the bad side). He was exactly that in this one. Montreal needs more nights like this from him.
Stats: 1 goal, 1 assist, even rating, 3 shots, 2 blocks, 27:12 TOI
2nd Star: Jake Evans – I was a bit worried when he failed to clear the puck twice on the early penalty kill but that was about the only blemish on a strong two-way effort. It was nice to see him snap an eight-game goal drought on the feed from Caufield. Evans has it in him to impact the game offensively but can defer a bit too often. Maybe this gets him a bit more confident in the offensive end
Stats: 1 goal, even rating, 3 shots, 8/15 faceoffs, 17:22 TOI
3rd Star: Joel Armia – This was not the one-in-ten flashy game where he shows the skills that made him a first-round pick a long time ago. Instead, this was one where he was his usual dependable self at even strength, had a solid effort on the penalty kill, and set up a pair of goals. It’s games like this that buy him a long leash with the coaching staff even when he’s struggling.
Stats: 2 assists, +1 rating, 2 PIMS, 2 hits, 15:51 TOI