Montreal Canadiens: Jesperi Kotkaniemi shines in preseason debut

What Happened?

The game started out fairly strong for the Montreal Canadiens. The Philip Danault, Brendan Gallagher, and Tomas Tatar line was out there, to begin with resulting in Tatar getting two solid scoring chances in the span of 30 seconds. The first was a quick shot from the slot which was stopped by Eddie Lack.

Afterwards, an odd situation saw Danault against to New Jersey Devils defencemen down low. A pass to his partner missed target and went to the side of the net instead. Danault raced to the puck which bounced off his skate to the front of the net which a streaking Tatar pounced on. Lack stopped that as well, but the new Hab had some pep to his step throughout the game.

The shots were even in the period, but the Devils had more control of the game 5v5 with an on-ice 60% CF. Montreal was put on the power play a few times as well, and although it looked improved with Victor Mete at the point on one of the units, not many shots made it to the goalie. It was reminiscent of how the man advantage looked early last season with many quick passes and not too many many shots.

But what looked improved was the penalty kill. The Montreal Canadiens did a great job in suppressing shots when the Devils were on the power play. It was an aggressive style of execution that forced the opposition to make less than ideal moves. The only blunder was a turnover on the blueline after a backhand pass from Simon Desprès led to a Blake Speers breakaway and a goal past Antti Niemi.