Morning Habit: Canadiens See Stars, Price Steals Another Win

MONTREAL,QC – The Montreal Canadiens squeaked out a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars last night at the Bell Centre, in their first game since the All-Star break. The Stars fired a whopping 87 shots in goaltender Carey Price‘s direction, with the Habs blocking 21 of them and Price stopping 40 of 42 that actually hit the net. In the end, the Stars outshot the Canadiens alomost 2:1 on the night.

In what has become a disturbing trend for the Canadiens, Dallas dominated the better part of two periods, while the Canadiens struggled to get any flow in their game. Any atttempt to get that flow going was derailed five minutes into the second period when Habs’ defenceman Alexei Emelin took a five minute boarding major and a game misconduct on a questionable assessment by referee Jean Hebert, giving the Stars an extended 5 on 3 power play.

Emelin was in pursuit of Stars’ centre Jason Spezza, who was going behind the net, when Spezza decided to change directions after Emelin had already committed to pursuing him. The result was a cross check to Spezza’s chronically wonky back and a cut on the bridge of his nose caused by his visor, resulting in Emelin’s expulsion from the game. While the league will automatically review the play because of the game misconduct, supplementary disipline for Emelin is unlikely.

Emelin also got on the scoresheet early, after a gratuitous bounce from a dump in hit Stars’ defenceman David Schlemko‘s skate near the half wall, bounced off the inside of the left pad of goaltender Keri Lehtonen and found the back of the net early in the first period, giving the Habs a 1-0 lead. Alex Galchenyuk extended the Canadiens lead to two goals after he came down the left-wing, turned Jordie Benn inside out, and roofed a backhand top shelf on the Stars’ netminder.

Coaching Brain Cramp

Twitter and the hockey fraternity were ablaze with criticism of Canadiens’ head coach Michel Therrien when, with 2.7 seconds left in the first period, he sent only a single centreman on the ice to take a defensive zone faceoff. The play resulted in Canadiens’ centre Manny Malholtra getting tossed from the dot, Brendan Gallagher losing the draw cleanly, leading to Dallas’ winger Jamie Benn‘s 14th goal of the season. With the Stars’ pulling their goalie for an extra attacker, and the Canadiens having last change, most viewed to omission of a second centre as a coaching “faux pas”. In the post-game press conference when faced with the question about the play, Coach Therrien said he thought it was more prudent to have shot blocking wingers on the ice instead of a second centre. At last check, Gallagher and Michael Bournival being amongst the league leaders in shot blocks.

Evening It Out

As the game wore on, the Canadiens seemed to get fatigued, mostly because of the constant pressure in the offensive zone by the Stars. The Habs’ power play got on the board again, as Gallagher scored to eventual game-winner early in the second period. In their last 5 games, the Canadiens are 8-for 27 (29.6%) with the man-advantage. It seems the new Diamond (a.k.a. 1-3-1) power play is paying dividends. My only concern is when teams once again realize that defenseman P.K. Subban has simply shifted into the left side faceoff circle instead of the point, and apply more pressure on him, will the powerplay remain as effective?