The Montreal Canadiens goal tree shriveled up Thursday night as they lose the game 4-0, and the season series to the Los Angeles Kings.
A lot of hockey minds said that this game would be more telling of the potential season swing for the Montreal Canadiens. It’s not necessarily easy to come back home and squeeze out a wing after a road trip, but it’s not hard either. This second match up against the Los Angeles Kings would let fans and analysts know whether the team had what it takes to string together a set of wins or not.
The Habs lost the game, but despite the score, they weren’t beaten. It’s another one of those games where they played the right way but were slapped with a whole lot of bad luck. However, we’re far from the point of accepting moral victories. It may be nice for Claude Julien to see the team play the right way, but in the dire state of things, getting two points takes priority.
Next up for Montreal will be the New York Rangers on Saturday. Both the Habs and the Rangers have been struggling so far this season, but that’s just the kind of game that the former at this point.
As for now, the Montreal Canadiens remain at the bottom of the Atlantic Division with a 2-7-1 record. The optimism around a potential push up the standings is slowly starting to disappear.
Thoughts and Observations
The last Montreal Canadiens game reaction was titled, “Gone in 97 Seconds”, because that’s all the time it took for the team to turn the game around against the Florida Panthers. The same thing happened in the Kings game.
Montreal was by far the better team in the first 19 minutes of the game. They were driving possession and had more shots and scoring chances. Jonathan Quick made three solid saves in the beginning of the first period on Jonathan Drouin and Paul Byron (twice) to keep the game at 0-0. It was the two goals the Habs gave up at the end of the period was what killed them. All it took was 10 seconds.
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A clearing attempt by Brendan Gallagher was picked up by Derek Forbort at the blueline who send the puck on net. Adrian Kempe tipped it past Carey Price to make it 1-0. You have to give it to Kempe on that one, but he was uncontested there.
It was alright, just shake it off and come back for the second period. Unfortunately, Victor Mete made his first noticeable mistake of the season. The 19-year-old turned the puck over along the wall (well he basically passed the puck to the Kings forward). Tyler Toffoli slaps a shot from the circle past Price to put LA up by two.
The game leveled out more into the second period between the two teams. Anze Kopitar scored his seventh of the season from a neutral zone turnover at 4-on-4. Price was in position to save it, but it was a better shot. You could say that he left him a little more room than he deserved up top.
The negativity from Thursday’s game doesn’t stop there. Nikita Scherbak had to leave the game early with a lower-body injury. It was an awkward collision with the boards that took him out. Scherbak was banged up in that area earlier with the Laval Rocket as well, so it makes you wonder whether it’s the same one.
2nd look at the Scherbak injury #Habs pic.twitter.com/UaPlMCicnw
— Shayne Pasquino (@shaynepasquino) October 27, 2017
LA’s fourth goal from Kurtis MacDermid was another deflection, but that time off of Andrew Shaw‘s stick. That didn’t stop the fans at the Bell Center to start getting a little hostile, which is the next topic of this reaction.
I understand the frustration. Booing the team is one thing, but sarcastically cheering whenever Price made a save is ridiculous. Could he play better? Sure I guess, but how is it fault when some of the goals going in are from deflections or bad bounces? At the same time, Quick shut the team out although they put up 40 shots. Additionally, going 0/5 on the power play was exactly opposite of what the Montreal Canadiens needed.
As much as the team can say that kind of stuff doesn’t bother them, they’re still people at the end of the day. You don’t want it to be home games that are difficult to play in. We’ll have to see how the Habs respond from this game.
Next: McCarron and Scherbak's Future
What are your thoughts from the game? Do you agree with the booing? Let us know down in the comments.