Montreal Canadiens Game Reactions: A Winning Hat-Trick

Things are looking great for the Montreal Canadiens as they defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 for their third win in-a-row.

See what I did there with the title?

There are many things to take away from this game. First, and most importantly, the Montreal Canadiens are officially on a winning streak. The Chicago Blackhawks, Winnipeg Jets, and now Vegas Golden Knights have all fallen to the Habs who now sit with 15 points on the season. You want to talk about dominating a team, the Golden Knights have never beaten the Montreal Canadiens (yes I know first game ever against them, just trying to be funny).

Additionally, the Wall of Charlie Lindgren is still up as his numbers in the NHL are continuing to soar. The 23-year-old remains undefeated after this game where he made 29 of 31 saves. Sending him down is going to be one of the hardest things the Habs will have to do.

This game did come without its blemishes though. Jonathan Drouin was forced to leave the game with an upper-body injury. We learned after the game that it was a hand injury that took Drouin out. How long it will be before he returns to action won’t be known until he is evaluated from the medical staff.

The Habs will continue their home stand on Thursday against the Minnesota Wild. With only being two points behind Washington and Detroit, Montreal can continue to lessen the gap to a playoff spot.

Thoughts and Observations

Montreal needed to have a strong start and keep up the pressure against this Vegas team. They had the benefit of having Maxime Lagace starting in goal despite playing the night before. You have to give it to Lagace though, he played his lights out and robbed the Habs a boatload of times.

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Keeping all of that in mind, this was still a trap game. The Golden Knights have exceeded a lot of people’s expectations by managing to put together a bunch of wins with a drive to never give up.

The Montreal Canadiens had the start that they needed by out shooting Vegas 9-2 in the first period and getting the game’s first two goals. Brendan Gallagher is sticking to his title of being the Habs best forward this season as he scored his seventh of the season. Tomas Plekanec managed to beat the two Vegas players to the puck to nullify icing and had a nice backhand feed to Gallagher across the crease. The 25-year-old is well on his way to surpass his goal total from last season already.

Charles Hudon‘s presence was felt on the ice in this one. If it wasn’t for the great play of Lagace, he easily could’ve scored two or three goals on his own. However, the rookie was involved on the Habs second of the game as he got the puck in the Vegas zone and made the initial outlet pass to Jordie Benn on the point.

Benn was blocked on the first attempt, but his second was a blast and couldn’t be stopped for his first of the season. If you need any insight on how good of a shot it was, there were some sports apps and social media accounts who thought it was Shea Weber who scored it.

The ‘trappy’ nature of the game started to sink in as the Habs let up on the pressure. Vegas had a couple spouts in Montreal’s zone winning puck battles and getting in on the cycle. Then they made the Canadiens pay for it. With about two minutes left in the period, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare completely undressed Jeff Petry to cut the lead in half.

Fortunately, Petry redeemed himself in the second period getting the primary assist on Max Pacioretty‘s game winning goal.

Lindgren shut the door for the remainder of the game making save after save. It’s not just that he’s keeping the puck of out the net, but Lindgren is playing with a level of calmness and poise that you would see out of an NHL goaltender. It’s too bad that Vegas scored in the final minutes of the game. Lagace was pulled for the extra attacker, and Erik Haula was left as open as a Walmart in December to receive the pass from Jon Marchessault to make it 3-2.

James Neal almost tied the game off a neutral zone turnover with 40 seconds left, but again Lindgren came up with the save.

Another thing I can’t forget to mention was that Alex Galchenyuk played center! Julien slid him over to the middle after Drouin was taken out of the game and Paul Byron came up to replace his spot. The 23-year-old was already having a solid performance, but he looked just as good, or even, better at center.

He was well aware of his defensive responsibilities and set up Artturi Lehkonen for an unbelievable chance that was turned aside from Lagace (honestly someone should’ve made a robbery tracker for him).

It would’ve been nice for the Habs not to make it so interesting, but at the end of the day, they got the win. Marc Bergevin told Montreal Media weeks ago that confidence was the issue. Watching how the team is playing now compared to back then, it’s really starting to look like he was right.

Next: The Duchene Frustration

What did you make of the game? Should Julien keep the Wall of Lindgren going? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.