Montreal Canadiens: Three Standout Performances vs St. Louis Blues
The Montreal Canadiens beat the defending Stanley Cup champions for the second time in less than a week. Here are their top three performers from the team’s second consecutive victory.
The Montreal Canadiens took on the defending Stanley Cup champions for the second time and once again came out on top. The Habs haven’t looked fantastic in all of their eight games, but they have been pretty sharp in two victories over the St. Louis Blues.
The Canadiens got off to a great start with Jesperi Kotkaniemi drawing a penalty on Justin Faulk for tripping just over four minutes into the contest. Tomas Tatar made a great cross-ice pass to a streaking Max Domi who drew everyone’s attention before firing a pass across to Jordan Weal at the top of the crease. Weal banged away at the puck a few times before finally knocking it over the line to open the scored less than six minutes into the game.
It didn’t take long for the Blues to tie the game. Just over a minute later an Alex Pietrangelo point shot ricocheted off the end boards and bounced directly to Jaden Schwartz at the far side of the Habs net. He made no mistake putting the puck in the net behind Carey Price who had no chance of reacting in time to the odd bounce off the boards.
It didn’t take long for the Canadiens to take the lead back once the puck dropped on the second period. Brendan Gallagher won a race for a loose puck off the opening draw and fired a dribbler at the Blues net from just inside the blue line. The puck took an odd bounce off Blues goaltender Jake Allen‘s stick and ended up in the back of the net.
Montreal extended the lead with yet another power play goal if you can believe it. The league’s second worst power play from last season is on fire to start the year and was suddenly two for two against the Blues. Jonathan Drouin scored the goal, but it came off a perfect cross-ice feed from Kotkaniemi.
Just past the midway mark of the frame and rookie Nick Suzuki scored for the second straight game. It was a goal nicely set up by Nate Thompson and Nick Cousins from down low and Suzuki made no mistake, one-timing a pass from behind the net and beating Allen to make it 4-1.
The score would remain that way until the dying minutes of the third period. The Blues had their goaltender pulled with more than minutes left to play and had fairly constant pressure on the Canadiens until the buzzer rang. David Perron made it 4-2 with a beautiful wrister over Price’s shoulder with 38 seconds remaining.
Shea Weber responded with an empty netter to seal the deal at 5-2 and give the Canadiens their second consecutive win and improve their record to 4-2-2. Here are the Habs three stars from last night’s victory.