Montreal Canadiens Lose at Bell Centre Again, Falling In Overtime To Vancouver Canucks

The Montreal Canadiens hit the ice for the first time since trading away several depth players at the trade deadline when they hosted the Vancouver Canucks looking to win their third straight game.

The Montreal Canadiens got their first taste of life following the trade deadline when they played host to the Vancouver Canucks last night. The Habs entered the game after winning back to back games and were looking to increase that to a three game winning full blown winning streak.

This would be the Habs first game after trading away several depth pieces at the trade deadline. The Canadiens moved Ilya Kovalchuk, Nate Thompson and Nick Cousins for third, fourth and fifth round draft picks. It makes sense to move out expiring contracts when you are not a contending team and you can add draft picks, but it left the team a little thin at forward.

With three regular forwards suddenly off the roster, the Habs went with a fourth line of Jordan Weal, Jake Evans and Dale Weise. Weal and Weise had been frequent healthy scratches lately and Evans was called up from the Laval Rocket following the trade frenzy on Monday.

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The game started well for the Habs. Max Domi carried the puck up ice flying down his off wing. He tried to fire a pass across the ice but it bounced off Canucks defender Quinn Hughes. The puck went right back to Domi who fired a cross-ice pass to Paul Byron who tapped it in as he streaked to the net.

Speaking of Byron, how good has he looked the past couple of games? Speed is back and he is creating chances like, well, like he always did.

Just over a minute later some offensive pressure by the Tomas Tatar, Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher line led to a pass going back to Shea Weber at the point. He hesitated as he faked a snapshot but then unloaded a blast that beat Thatcher Demko and made it 2-0 Habs less than halfway through the first period.

Things were going well for the Habs. But then, Canucks head coach Travis Green called a timeout to settle his team down, which was successful. Also, Shea Weber got a slashing penalty for, ummm, I don’t know, you tell me:

Slashing? On Weber? Okay.

Of course the Canucks scored almost immediately on the power play and were right back in the game a few minutes before the end of the first period.

The Canadiens dominated the second period, with the Danault line especially causing havoc in the Canucks zone and never letting go off possession of the puck. They outshot Vancouver 12-4 in the middle frame but of course allowed the only goal on an Alex Edler point shot. The puck someone weaved its way through six different people in front of the net and found some twine.

The game was now tied though the Habs were clearly the better team through two.

Who else but Jordan Weal gave the Habs a 3-2 lead in the third period? Less than a minute into the third, a Max Domi cantering feed bounced off Quinn Hughes again and bounced right to Weal who fired it home.

Five minutes later, with the Canucks on another penalty, though this one was for Christian Folin nearly crushing Adam Gaudette into dust from behind, Jake Virtanen scored to tie the game. His shot hit Carey Price up high and kind of bounced up in the air and landed behind Price and in the net.

It was a very odd goal for Price to allow but when you don’t have a backup and have to play 16 out of 17 games…

The game went to overtime and the Canucks dominated control of the play. Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and J.T. Miller started the extra frame and had several chances to win it. Hughes was clearly hooked by Petry to end a scoring chances but there was no penalty.

Petry then had a chance to clear the zone but ran into Max Domi and the Canucks kept it in. This led to a few more chances before Bo Horvat fired a cross-ice pass to Tyler Toffoli who roofed the puck and gave the Canucks a big 4-3 overtime road victory.

Once again the Canadiens lost at home. Their record at the Bell Centre drops to 13-15-6 on the season. Want to know why the Habs won’t play in the playoffs this year? Because they are terrible at home. Their next game is Thursday night against the New York Rangers at the Bell Centre. If this season is any indication, I’d be betting on the Rangers in that one.