Montreal Canadiens Game Reactions: Chelsea Daggered

The Montreal Canadiens fail to score more goals again as they drop their home opener 3-1 to the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

On the bright side, at least it wasn’t a shutout this time. It was game number four for the Montreal Canadiens. It was their first game at home for the 2017-2018 regular season. Unfortunately, it was another loss, this time to the Chicago Blackhawks. That makes three games in a row where the team hasn’t been able to win a game. We’re now officially in a losing streak.

There were fears before the game would start that it wouldn’t sell out. Some thought it was because of the way the team was playing while others thought it was because of the prices. Either way it was a full house of 21,302 for the game.

The team has a three-day break before their next match up against the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night. Hopefully they can put in some serious work until then because the schedule doesn’t get any easier.

Thoughts and Observations

The Beauty

What makes it worse is that they didn’t play that badly. The Montreal Canadiens followed the game plan and had a high tempo start. Considering the Blackhawks had played the night before, it was essential that the Habs take the game to them right after the opening face off.

That great start led to Tomas Plekanec getting the first goal for the Habs off a Ryan Hartman turnover. Sure it was a pretty weak goal for Corey Crawford to give up as well, but a goal is a goal.

Then the game turned into one of the most frustrating games ever. The games where you’re playing well, putting up shots and creating scoring chances, but absolutely nothing goes in. It also helped the Crawford bounced back after that first goal and shutdown any attempt made by the Habs to score.

The Grease

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Unfortunately it was poorly timed mistakes that cost the team some goals against. At this point it’s the usual suspects. To put it nicely, Jordie Benn got Alex Debrincat his first NHL goal (yes I know the pick the Habs traded for Andrew Shaw was used to draft him). Instead of Benn being patient, he forced the play which led to Patrick Sharp sending the feed to the rookie for his first.

The Blackhawks second goal was a straight up vet vs rookie. Brandon Saad fully schooled Victor Mete. It also doesn’t help that there were no other forwards to help support him.

It got to the point in the third period where the Habs lost all control of the game. They couldn’t complete any passes or sustain ample time in the offensive zone. That changed a bit once Claude Julien started to mix the lines up a bit, but it didn’t lead to anymore goals.

Again, we have another game where the scoreboard doesn’t dictate the dynamic of the game. However, it’s what’s on the scoreboard that matters.

Next: How to Improve the Power Play

What did you make of the game? Let us know what you think in the comments.