Montreal Canadiens: Three Stars From Blowout Victory

Montreal Canadiens home games haven’t gone their way often enough early this season. heading into last night’s contest with the high powered Winnipeg Jets, the Habs were just 4-5-1 at the Bell Centre.

Teams, especially good teams, take care of business on home ice and that propels them into the postseason.

They have been a little bit better at home lately, winning once and losing in overtime to Winnipeg in Dominique Ducharme’s only two games as the head coach at home. They were looking to build off of that last night before they head out west for a pair of games against each of the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and Jets.

Things started pretty well for the Habs in the first period. Carey Price was tested early, and made a few solid saves to give the team confidence. They drew a penalty when Shea Weber was high sticked by Mathieu Perreault but couldn’t convert on the man advantage. Shortly after the penalty ended, Jesperi Kotkaniemi tried to dump the puck around the net but a lucky bounce sent it out into the slot where Josh Anderson pounced on it and scored into a wide open net.

The second period was one of the best we have seen from the Canadiens this season.

Tyler Toffoli started an offensive outburst when he got the puck in the slot and fired a quick wrist shot over the shoulder of Connor Hellebuyck. A couple of sweet passes from Phillip Danault to Brendan Gallagher increased the lead to 4-0 and then a Joel Armia snipe pushed the game out of reach when he made it 5-0 late in the second frame.

The Canadiens continued to pour it on in the third period with goals from Paul Byron and Jeff Petry.

A late power play goal from Mathieu Perreault ruined Price’s shutout bid, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make this game interesting in the third period.