Habs Stay Perfect With 3-0 Win Over Blues

7 became the holiest of numbers tonight for the Montreal Canadiens as their earned their 7th win in a row, beating the St. Louis Blues 3-0.

It was a slow start but Max Pacioretty‘s glove guided Tomas Plekanec‘s shot to give the Habs a 1-0 lead with over 2 minutes left in the 1st period. The Blues had a chance on a late power play a few seconds later from Andrei Markov‘s interference against Scottie Upshall, but couldn’t make much of it as there wasn’t enough time to finish the PP.

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While the Habs managed to score for 1st for the 6th time this season, the period ended with the Blues leading 17-10 in shots. St. Louis came out as the stronger team on the ice, with Carey Price making 5 saves within 6 minutes. During that time, the Habs only generated 1 shot on goal out of the 6 attempts on Jake Allen.

The Blues were also successful breaking up the offensive chemistry that the Habs have shown throughout the last 6 games, which is what the Blues have always been good at. Price was the safety blanket for the Habs throughout most of the 20 minutes, making 17 saves on 23 shot attempts.

Alexander Semin got to celebrate his 1st goal as a Canadiens player with a hard wrist shot from the slot 4 minutes and 52 seconds into the 2nd period, with Alex Galchenyuk grabbing his 6th point in 7 games with an assist.

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The Habs looked cluttered on the ice, especially when it came down to giving up odd man rushes with Price saving the day. The Blues, of course, were still staying the offensive, aggressive team they had been since the start.

Semin’s goal led to the team staying on the offense they created leading up to his goal, becoming aggressive on maintaining puck possession. The Blues ended up with a PP from Tom Gilbert’s scrum, almost grabbing the perfect scoring chance. Unfortunately, the puck bounced off the inside of the rounded glass on the inside of the St. Louis bench, leading to a no-goal call from the refs.

A cross-checking call on Joel Edmundson with 4 minutes left gave the Habs a PP. While they did manage to get caught up in shot-attempts (despite the Blues leading 28-21 in shots on net), the late PP was a bust and the Habs ended the period with a 2-0 lead.

Mandatory Credit: Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports

It was a struggle on both sides of the ice in the 1st 5 minutes of the 3rd period. Both the Habs and the Blues were fighting to get pucks on net, while Montreal struggled to stay aggressive and clear the rubber.

It took 8 minutes and 7 seconds left of the period for the Habs to get on the attack, but Devante Smith-Pelly‘s distraction on Carl Gunnarsson gave Torrey Mitchell the perfect chance to go right to the slot to pick up P.K. Subban‘s rebound.

The Habs stayed fast paced for the final 5 minutes and with 3 and a half minutes to go, Dmitrij Jaskin‘s high-sticking penalty let the Habs have a chance to take the lead on SOG with no goals made.

Montreal ended the night with 7 straight victories and a 3-0 win over St. Louis.

If there’s one thing I can say about this game that may have not caught many fans’ eyes is that Alexei Emelin looked like a brand new player out on the ice.

Some of you may be saying “Are you high?,” but the truth is that I’m not. A lot of his improvement is due to the fact that he’s playing with Jeff Petry, but he’s looking almost 100% back to normal. Maybe his knee has finally healed or maybe he just really wanted to improve his play. Either way, colour me impressed.

Once again, the Habs went back to the whole “dump and chase” method, which was annoying but then again, it’s what you would expect when playing the Blues. St. Louis is an aggressive team. They want to win and when they want to win, they’ll mess up the line chemistry and give you no other option to dump and chase.

What I would have rather seen though, was the Habs working as a team like they did against the Detroit Red Wings. No more relying on Price to win games. That method is extremely overused and the team has enough talent that they don’t need to fall back on the goalie.

How did you feel about tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments below!

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