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.

Third Star: Brendan Gallagher

Brendan Gallagher is having another typical season for himself. That means he outworks just about everyone every night, gets to the front of the net on nearly every shift and creates absolute havoc there.

He also scored, quite frequently.

Gallagher is not going to lead the league in goals, but after another great performance last night, he has ten goals in 22 games. He is just inside the top 20 on the goals scored list and is proving to be more than worthy of that contract extension that will kick in next season.

He lined up on a line with Phillip Danault and Tomas Tatar last night, as he has done most nights since the start of the 2018-19 campaign. The trio is known for tremendous two-way play as they are comfortable shutting down the best players in the league, but also have a regular 30 goal man in Gallagher.

He looked like a 30 goal scorer again last night. With the Habs leading 2-0 in the second period, Gallagher scored two pretty similar goals within three minutes to double the Canadiens lead.

On both goals he got open down low in the Jets zone and one-timed nice passes from Danault. He got to the front of the net and quickly capitalized on his chances like he has been doing since making his NHL debut in 2012.

The game continued to be tilted in the Habs direction after Gallagher’s goals and would end 7-1. However, last week the Habs were leading the Jets 2-0 and lost 6-3. Gallagher ensured that wouldn’t happen again when he extended that lead to 4-0 and put it out of reach.

First Star: Phillip Danault

It hasn’t been a great season fo Phillip Danault. He had been the Habs number one centre for the past few seasons, but is suddenly being pressured by both Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi for ice time down the middle.

Scoring zero goals in his first 22 games doesn’t allow to him to make much of a case that he should be getting more ice time than the young centres. He is still playing with Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher, but the Suzuki line has taken over the role as the team’s top line.

Danault is still a great defensive centre, but with no goals and eight assists in 22 games entering last night, he just isn’t producing enough offence.

Then, last night he did his best Ron Francis impression.

The Canadiens took a 2-0 lead in the second period and Danault ensured the team doubled it by setting up Gallagher for two goals. Both snipes were off the back of incredible passes from Danault.

On Gallagher’s first goal, the puck came to Danault to the left of the Jets net. Danault faked a shot that drew lots of attention before firing a cross ice pass to Gallagher. The gritty right winger didn’t get a lot on the shot but it beat Hellebuyck between the legs.

Three minutes later Danault made an even nicer pass to get Gallagher on the score sheet. He made a nice backhand pass to get the puck to Tatar down low and he fired the puck towards the net. It was blocked and bounced back to Danault who did a spin-o-rama before sending a backhanded cross-ice pass to Gallagher in front who one-timed it into the net and ended Hellebuyck’s evening.

It hasn’t been a great season for Danault, especially offensively, but he was terrific at both ends of the ice last night.