If the Montreal Canadiens need a boost of confidence to take on the Pittsburgh Penguins, they should look no further at their December game against them.
By this point in the 2019-20 season, the Montreal Canadiens were coming off a stretch of nine losses in ten games. Jonathan Drouin, Paul Byron, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi were all out dealing with injuries, and the Habs needed a response to find any means of retaking control of their year. It started with a win against the New York Rangers and moved on to a 4-1 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Many have tried to pinpoint specific things the Habs need to have a chance against the Penguins in August (the target month for the restart of the NHL season). The state of things will come down to one of two outcomes. Ideally, you’d like it to be a mix of both, but as Marc Bergevin and Geoff Molson like to constantly remind Habs fans of, anything can happen in the playoffs.
That being said, Montreal’s series could end up being similar to their 4-1 win over Pittsburgh or their 4-1 loss.
As I mentioned earlier, that first victory against the Penguins of the season series at a much needed time for the Montreal Canadiens. Unfortunately, it didn’t have an ideal start.
The Habs had some offensive pressure making use of the 4-1 umbrella set up at 5v5. Phillip Danault sent a pass to Ben Chiarot, who was manning the point on his own, but the pass was fumbled. Without enough bodies back to help, Bryan Rust found Jake Guentzel for the easy tap-in to make it 1-0.
The Penguins didn’t let up for the remainder of the first period getting the majority of the chances while the Habs were trying to match them for speed. And then the second period began, and the Montreal Canadiens took off scoring three goals starting with Tomas Tatar‘s powerplay tally.