Montreal Canadiens have work to do falling to the Leafs 4-2
By Scott Cowan
The Montreal Canadiens played their first game of the resumed NHL season Tuesday night, losing 4-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs in an exhibition game.
NHL hockey is back.
Nearly 5 months after the league suspended play on March 12th, 2020, the first exhibition games in the NHL’s return to play format are underway. Following a tight-knit 3-2 OT win for the Philadelphia Flyers over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Montreal Canadiens faced the Toronto Maple Leafs Tuesday night, suffering a tough 4-2 loss.
It was the first meeting between these 2 teams since a 2-1 Habs win on February 8th, and it’s one that serves as a way for these players to shake the rust off before entering the 24-team playoff format, which Montreal begins on August 1st when they face the Pittsburgh Penguins in their qualifier.
For Toronto, forward Ilya Mikheyev, and defenseman Morgan Rielly each potted one goal, while checking forward Alex Kerfoot scored two. Tomas Tatar and Paul Byron scored for the Canadiens. The Habs powerplay went 0/5 and allowed two shorthanded goals. Carey Price made 19 saves on 23 shots, and Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen stopped 27 of the 29 shots sent his way.
Head coaches Sheldon Keefe, and Claude Julien ran with some different line combinations as compared to the regular season, offsetting the expected top lines with some unexpected additions to the bottom and middle six. Following a well-made intro video narrated by Canadian journalist Stephen Brunt, and the orchestrated national anthem without the anthem singer, the game got off to a quick start in Toronto’s favor, only 30 seconds into the game. Mikheyev, who missed most of this season after suffering a severed tendon in his wrist, broke out of the defensive zone with Leafs captain John Tavares, who laid a pass across for a nice goal.