With the stress involved in the trade deadline behind them, the Canadiens were set to host the Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night. The Canucks haven’t won in Montreal since 2011, due in large part to Carey Price, who only has two regulation losses to the Canucks in 18 career games, saving 94.1 percent of the shots on his way to a 13-2-2 record in that stretch.
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Jake Evans was back in the lineup, taking over from the recently departed Nate Thompson, who was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers, but not before the veteran lauded the rookie’s overall play and potential. In addition, the Ilya Kovalchuk and Nick Cousins trades meant that Dale Weise and Jordan Weal were reinserted into the lineup.
The matchup would feature two of the NHL’s best rookies, Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes and Montreal’s Nick Suzuki, who currently sit first and third in rookie scoring, respectively. As is tradition, the game went to overtime, where the Canucks prevailed, 4-3.
Living on the edge
Max Domi can be an incredibly effective player. To do that, he needs to play on the edge, without flying over spectacularly in homage to Hunter S. Thompson, as we’ve seen several times over the course of his time with the Canadiens.
His hit on Quinn Hughes on the first shift on the game, which was clearly a penalty and yet went uncalled, was a strong indication that Domi came ready to play.
It also set the tempo for the first half of the period, in which the Canadiens dominated their opponents.
Shortly thereafter, Domi burned Hughes on the rush to set up Paul Byron for his third goal of the season and his fourth point in four games since coming back from injury. It was classic Domi: hard work, clean zone entry and a great pass, which was aided by Weal’s perfect stick lift on Hughes to allow the pass to get through.
“I think my skating game has come back to me,” said Byron to TSN’s John Lu at the intermission, and he’s not wrong. He’s shown as many impressive bursts of speed since he’s come back as he did in the first 19 games of the season, perhaps even more.
Domi’s strong performance continued, as he plastered Elias Pettersson midway through the first period to facilitate a zone exit for his team.
Physical, offensive-minded and playing on the edge is exactly where Domi needs to be, and where the Canadiens need Domi to be.
Follow the leader
With Domi setting the example, the Canadiens made several key plays to make up for their own mistakes, such as when Tomas Tatar got on his horse to nullify a two-on-one when Karl Alzner got caught up high. It’s worth noting that Tatar made it back in the defensive zone just in time to appear in J.T. Miller’s peripheral vision, thus removing Pettersson’s shot, which falls somewhere between ridiculous and wizardry, from the play.
Weber doubled the Canadiens’ lead shortly thereafter, by scoring with one of his patented heavy shots from the point.
If you ask Weber, the double pump, one of his favourite moves at the blue line, is probably a strategic action to allow for more traffic in front of the goaltender, but I have another theory. As Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” And the same can apply to Weber’s slap shot. Every goalie has a plan until they realize Weber is ready to shoot. Delaying the shot gives goalies a few seconds to come to terms that a frozen chunk of vulcanized rubber is about to attain Mach 2, and it’s their job to stand in front of it. As they contemplate their life choices and wonder whether they’ve saved up enough money to retire to Ireland’s peaceful rolling hills, the puck usually makes its way to the back of the net with very little resistance.
Either way, the strategy worked, leading to Weber’s 15th goal of the season, tying him with John Carlson for second in goals among NHL defencemen.
We’re good for a short time, not a long time
Remember what I said about the Canadiens controlling the play for the first half of the period? Well, much like mango and clementine season, all good things come to an end.
After a perfect timeout by Canucks coach Travis Green, his team took over and would have finished the period tied, or in the lead, if not for some solid goaltending by Price, particularly his save on Bo Horvat when his defencemen were scrambling to clear the zone.
The Canucks eventually scored thanks to an excellent shot by Horvat on the power play, a power play that was anything but justified seeing as Weber was called for slashing, but it was actually the top of Tyler Motte’s stick that broke, 3 feet away from where Weber made contact with it.
If you look closely, it’s actually Weber who gets slashed on the hands in this play. My theory is that he used his Jedi powers to make Motte’s stick explode, the same way he used his powers to heal his sprained ankle in record time.
The goggles do nothing!
The Canucks went on to tie the game on a rather unspectacular goal by Alexander Edler, though it should be noted that there was very little opportunity for Price to track the shot. One can only assume they were inspired by the bus ride to their hotel, as the Canucks created more traffic in front of Price than you see on Autoroute 40 at rush hour.
Back on the Fury Road
Domi’s solid play extended into the third period, where he set up Weal for his seventh goal of the season. Weal and Domi showed excellent speed on the scoring play, though they were certainly helped along by a lucky bounce off Hughes’ skate, leading the puck to land directly on Weal’s stick.
You know what they say: Put the Corsi on net and good things will happen.
Those of you who have followed along attentively to these video reviews over the course of the last three seasons not only deserve an award for your resilience, but you also know exactly what’s coming next: The Canadiens blew yet another third-period lead, their second blown lead of the game and their 14,754th blown lead of the season, give or take a few hundred blown leads.
Price, who had the same reaction as I do when I realize there are tomatoes on my food even after I specifically crafted a long-winded lie about being allergic to tomatoes as to avoid them tainting my meal, was clearly caught off guard by the shot, assuming a cross-crease pass was on its way.
In overtime, the Canadiens went with the questionable “we don’t need no stinkin’ line changes” strategy, which, surprisingly, backfired spectacularly, with Tyler Toffoli scoring the game-winner.
Final word
Despite the loss, the game itself was rather entertaining. It had a little bit of everything: big hits, big saves and plenty of goals. What’s more, the Canadiens avoided winning, something they’re very good at, which means they only added one point to the standings, thus maintaining their lottery odds.
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Can fans ask for anything more? Yes, yes they can. Having a competitive hockey team, for one. But for now, that ship has sailed.
On a much more serious note, something’s up with Jonathan Drouin. Or rather, something is down, way down, and that something happens to be his execution with the puck. Drouin’s play since his return from injury is sending up the same type of red flags as Byron did after his fight with MacKenzie Weegar. He’s a shadow of his early-season self,
With virtually no shot at the playoffs, his dip in play isn’t a huge reason for concern, but if the Canadiens do hope to be competitive next season, they’ll need Drouin to be in top form, seeing as that’s a rather big if. The good news, however, is that Domi seems to be back to his old self. The team will need both players to be at the top of their game to compete, because as we saw versus the Canucks, one out of two is simply not good enough.
(Top photo: Francois Lacasse / NHLI via Getty Images)
