Montreal Canadiens Analysis: Charles Hudon’s drive wins it in overtime

Thoughts and Observations

There was a lot more bad than good in the opening period of this game. It started with Paul Byron taking a crosscheck from behind at the hands of John Moore which of course wasn’t called. It was nerve-wracking tracking what was going on with him afterward. Byron went to the dressing room, then came out to the Habs bench, only to go back to the dressing room minutes later. Just as we were starting to think how the Habs would work the lineup without him, Byron returned for the second time, and he played the remainder of the game.

We had another momentary scare with Pacioretty in the third after it looked like he overextended his arm and had to go to the dressing room. Luckily he came back as well, but it didn’t look good at first.

The negativity continued as the game went on. Montreal spent the majority of the first in their zone. Breakouts looked more and more difficult for them, and once the Devils had the puck, the team lost their structure completely.

New Jersey’s first goal was an embodiment of their defensive play, and unfortunately, it was a bad flashback of what Jordie Benn was at the beginning of the season. As the Devils were entering the neutral zone, Benn decided to skate over to the left to stop Jesper Bratt, but he had already passed the puck to Andy Greene. Stefan Noesen received the quick feed from him and beat Carey Price blocker side to put them up 1-0.

Frustrating play by Benn there but he got the Habs back into the game after Andrew Shaw deflected his point shot and was huge on the 5-on-3 penalty kill in the second. Benn had three blocks and at a point even stood in net after Price was knocked down.

You would’ve liked for the Habs to get some momentum from that kill, but it was the opposite. Montreal had their shots here and there but rarely had dangerous scoring chance apart from Corey Schnieder’s stop on Pacioretty at the beginning of the game.