Montreal Canadiens Win Game 3 Despite Horrible Officiating

The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in overtime after the puck bounced off Marc-André Fleury’s skate and went to Josh Anderson, who buried it and forced an overtime.

This was about the only luck the Canadiens had on Friday. I absolutely hate complaining about the reffing in hockey because, then it’s just like you’re looking for excuses, but the officiating in Game 3 was so blatantly one-sided, I have to point it out. There were also multiple missed calls in Game 2, but nothing even remotely close to what we saw on Friday.

However, the hockey gods were with the Canadiens and helped Anderson tie the game with two minutes remaining – before they even had the chance to pull Carey Price out.

And then, in overtime, was another uncalled penalty, definitely the worst of the game: Jonathan Marchessault’s high-stick on Corey Perry, which should’ve been a double-minor.

But Perry being the tough veteran he is, came back out right after getting stitched up to celebrate the win with his teammates.

It wasn’t too long after that high stick, when Jeff Petry stole the puck from Reilly Smith, passed to Jesperi Kotkaniami who made the long high pass to Josh Anderson, who knocked the puck down, leaving it for Paul Byron.

As Byron skated towards the net, he faked the shot fooling Fleury, and then passed it back to Anderson for a beautiful tap-in goal.

After not being able to score since Game 1 against the Toronto Maple Leafs, he finally struck on Friday and got two big goals – the late tying goal and the overtime winner. Let’s hope his drought is now over and he can get some more goals in this series.

Carey Price was also outstanding last night, having the fourth-best playoff game of his career, making 43 saves out of 45 shots on goal, many of which were not easy saves.

Cole Caufield had a great game as well. He had many good scoring opportunities and a breakaway goal only seconds after Vegas’s first goal, responding and tying the game. For the first time in this series, he showed us his goal-scoring abilities. Add that to his play-making skills displayed in his many assists this postseason, and we can already see what calibre of player he is and will be. It’s hard to believe he’s not even a rookie yet, right?

With Game 4 tonight, it will be interesting to see if the officiating will be a bit more even, but in the meantime, the Canadiens better keep on perfecting their penalty kill just in case it’s more of the same.