Canadiens Game Day: Blue Ain’t Your Colour for Habs

Article content

Hopefully La Cage restaurants didn’t stock up on extra chicken wings while the Canadiens were scoring 44 goals during their first 10 games this season.

La Cage has a promotion where fans can get eight free wings when the Canadiens score five or more goals in a game. The Canadiens scored at least five goals in six of their first 10 games while posting a 7-1-2 record.

They haven’t scored five goals again since, going 3-5-4 in their last 12 games while scoring 27 goals — an average of 2.25 per game. The most goals they have scored in any of the last 12 games is four — and they only did that once, losing 5-4 to the Ottawa Senators in overtime.

The Canadiens scored three goals Thursday night at the Bell Centre, but it wasn’t enough as they lost 4-3 to the Winnipeg Jets in OT. Brendan Gallagher (power play), Tyler Toffoli and Corey Perry scored for the Canadiens, who outshot the Jets 36-27. Perry’s goal, which was originally credited to Jonathan Drouin, came with 1:24 left in the third period and goalie Jake Allen on the bench for an extra attacker.

Article content

The Jets got two goals from Paul Stastny and one from Mathieu Perreault in regulation time before Pierre-Luc Dubois scored the winner in OT.

The Canadiens are now 0-4 in overtime this season and 0-2 in shootouts. They are also 0-3-1 while wearing their reverse-retro blue jerseys and are 4-5-1 overall at the Bell Centre. They are in fourth place in the North Division with a 10-6-6 record, only two points ahead of the fifth-place Calgary Flames (11-11-2), who beat the Ottawa Senators 7-3 Thursday night. The Canadiens hold two games in hand on Calgary with the top four teams making the playoffs.

Article content

“I don’t think we were bad tonight,” Toffoli said after scoring his team-leading 14th goal of the season. “We had some chances to go up during the game. Power play, Gally with another big goal, and we had some good looks in overtime. We score in overtime it’s a whole different story.”

Head coach Dominique Ducharme started the overtime with Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Paul Byron and defenceman Jeff Petry on the ice. Defencemen Shea Weber and Ben Chiarot also saw ice time in OT, but at one point Ducharme decided to go with three forwards: Byron, Tomas Tatar and Nick Suzuki.

“A combination of speed and skills,” Ducharme said about that move. “It was supposed to be Suzuki’s line but (Drouin) had cramps just before, so I went with Paulie. … It’s chemistry, it’s trying to create something, create confusion so that we can have some good movement and create a scoring chance. A little bit like what happened on their goal. We ran into each other because they made a kind of a scissor play. We want to create those things. That’s how we take it.”

Article content

Petry and Joel Armia collided with each other, resulting in the winning goal for the Jets, who always use three forwards in OT and had Dubois, Nikolaj Ehlers and Kyle Connor on the ice for the winning goal.

Keith Urban’s hit country-music song Blue Ain’t Your Color is something Canadiens owner Geoff Molson might want to listen to.

But it doesn’t matter what colour jerseys the Canadiens wear, they need to start scoring more goals — including in overtime, where they don’t have any this season.

Article content

Allen gets start

Allen saw his record drop to 4-2-3 with a 2.31 goals-against average and a .921 save percentage. The Canadiens were shut out in both of his regulation-time losses.

The first Jets goal was an unlucky bounce for Allen that went in off Stastny’s skate in the crease. The second goal by Perreault came after a really bad giveaway by Toffoli in his own zone. The third goal came after Weber failed to pick up an easy pass Allen made from behind the net along the boards and Stastny then beat Allen high to the short side with the goalie on his knees, leaving a lot of room up top.

The Canadiens were coming off a 3-1 win over the Senators Tuesday night at the Bell Centre, in which Carey Price made 26 saves for the win, improving his record to 6-4-3 with a 2.96 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage. Canadiens goalie coach Stéphane Waite was fired after the second period of that game.

Article content

Sean Burke will take over from Waite as the new director of goaltending, but must go through a 14-day COVID-19 quarantine after arriving in Montreal from his home in Arizona. Marco Marciano, the goaltending coach for the AHL’s Laval Rocket, will work with Allen and Price in the meantime.

“We looked at the schedule,” Ducharme said after Thursday’s morning skate in Brossard when asked about Allen starting in goal. “We were happy with Carey’s performance in the last game. Jake has done good work, so he’ll get the start tonight. Jake was going to play one of the two games against Winnipeg, tonight or Saturday. We decided to go with him tonight.”

That would suggest Price will be in goal when the Canadiens face the Jets again Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

Article content

Connor Hellebuyck was in goal for the Jets Thursday night and last season’s Vézina Trophy winner as the NHL’s best goalie improved his record to 11-6-1 with a 2.60 goals-against average and a .915 save percentage.

Article content

Anderson still sidelined

Canadiens right-winger Josh Anderson took part in Thursday’s morning skate but wasn’t ready to return to the lineup, missing his third straight game because of a lower-body injury.

“Josh had made good progress,” Ducharme said after the morning skate. “He won’t play tonight, though. We’ll see about Saturday. Ideally, we want to ensure that he’s 100 per cent before he plays again. We don’t want him to come back when there’s still a risk of injury. We’re taking that into consideration when it comes to his injury.”

Here’s how the forward lines and defence pairings looked for the Canadiens:

Drouin – Suzuki – Toffoli
Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Lehkonen – Kotkaniemi – Armia
Byron – Evans – Perry

Article content

Chiarot – Weber
Edmundson – Petry
Kulak – Romanov

Article content

New linemate

Toffoli has taken Anderson’s spot at right wing on a line with Suzuki and Drouin.

“I think with Toffs coming on our line all of us like to make little plays within small areas,” Suzuki said. “I think all of us are smart players so we can use each other well, jump to open ice. We’ve had some really great shifts hemming the other team in the defensive zone for long periods of time and that will help the next line coming out if we make a good change. But as a line I think we have everything we need to score and produce offence and play well in the D zone. (Ducharme has) been trusting us in defensive-zone draws against other team’s top lines, so I think we have everything that the line needs.”

Suzuki started the season with a seven-game point streak and had points in eight of the first 10 games. But the 21-year-old centre has only two goals and three assists in the last 12 games, giving him 5-11-16 totals for the season.

Article content

New system

Ducharme has been trying to put in a new system on the fly with very little practice time since taking over from Claude Julien as head coach last Wednesday.

The Canadiens are now 1-1-2 in their first four games with Ducharme as coach and have scored 10 goals during that span.

“It’s trying not to overthink it,” Drouin said when asked what the biggest challenge has been for the new coach and players. “We’re changing stuff as we go on. We don’t have training camp, we don’t have any of that stuff. It’s day in, day our you’re trying to change a little thing and make sure we’re clear on that stuff. So I think the biggest challenge for coaches and players is make sure we’re not thinking too much and everything’s clear at that point where we just go out and play and know what we’re doing.

Article content

“I thought the coaching staff did a great job with that where they don’t throw 10 things at us,” Drouin added. “It’s one thing at a time. We kind of focus on that one thing, figure it out, and we move on from there and just play hockey.”

Article content

Power play gets a spark

After going 2-for-3 on the power-play in Tuesday night’s win over the Senators, the Canadiens went 1-for-1 Thursday night with Gallagher scoring his eighth goal of the season. Before Tuesday, the Canadiens had gone 2-for-25 on the power play in their previous 11 games.

New assistant coach Alex Burrows is now in charge of the power play after associate coach Kirk Muller was fired last Wednesday, along with Julien. Burrows had been an assistant coach with the Rocket.

“He’s brought a lot,” Suzuki said about Burrows. “New energy, new kind of philosophy and plays that he’s worked with in Laval. I’ve seen a couple of clips of successful power plays from down there and I think he’s been doing a great job with us so far.”

Article content

“I think guys are executing well,” Drouin added about the power play. “Burr’s done a great job of making sure we’re on the same page. Everyone knows what they have to do on the ice in their spots.”

Article content

Some stats

The Canadiens outshot the Jets 36-27, outhit them 42-24 and won 59 per cent of the faceoffs. The Canadiens went 1-for-1 on the power play, while the Jets were 0-for-2.

Chiarot led the Canadiens in ice time with 23:38, followed by Weber with 21:54 and Petry with 21:29. Suzuki led the forwards with 21:39 of ice time, while Toffoli had 19:37 and Phillip Danault had 18:09.

Weber led the Canadiens with six shots, while Armia had four and Suzuki, Toffoli, Petry and Brett Kulak had three each. Suzuki and Armia had five hits each, while Drouin and Alexander Romanov had four.

Suzuki had a very good night in the faceoff circle, going 12-6 (67 per cent), while Danault was 12-8 (60 per cent), Kotkaniemi was 3-4 (43 per cent) and Jake Evans was 1-1 (50 per cent).

Article content

Marciano working with goalies

Ducharme and Marciano have a history together going back to their days with the QMJHL’s Montreal Juniors.

Ducharme was an assistant coach with the Juniors in 2010-11 when Marciano was the team’s goalie coach. Joël Bouchard, now head coach of the Rocket, was also an assistant coach with that team under head coach Pascal Vincent, who is now head coach of the Manitoba Moose, the Jets’ AHL farm team.

“Obviously, when you work with someone like Marco in the juniors and now to see him being here today it’s always nice to see people going from one step to the other and making it to this level,” Ducharme said.

Ducharme added that while Burke is going through his quarantine he will be working closely with Marciano on video conference.

Article content

“They’re talking all the time,” Ducharme said. “Obviously, everything that Marco does on the ice with our goalies they talked about it and they prepare drills together. So until Sean is coming here that’s the way they’re going to be working.”

What’s next?

The Canadiens will have the day off Friday before facing the Jets again Saturday night at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., SNE, SNW, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM). The Canadiens will then fly to Vancouver on Sunday to start a six-game Western Canada road trip.

Next week, the Canadiens will play the Canucks on Monday (10 p.m., TSN2, SNP, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Wednesday (11 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM). After that, they travel to Calgary to play the Flames on Thursday (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Saturday (7 p.m., SNE, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

The week after that, the Canadiens play the Jets in Winnipeg on Monday (8 p.m., ,TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Wednesday (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), before returning to Montreal for six straight games at the Bell Centre.

scowan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/StuCowan1