Montreal Canadiens: All Five Skaters Combine For Ridiculous Power Play Goal

The Montreal Canadiens preseason is well underway and they are taking part in their second exhibition game tonight.

Their first preseason contest was a lifeless effort against the Toronto Maple Leafs that resulted in a 4-1 loss in Toronto. The Canadiens then had their annual Red vs White games in front of a lively crowd of 7,500 at the Bell Centre.

The Habs are taking on the Maple Leafs tonight in a rematch at the Bell Centre and in just the first period alone they showed more promise than they did on Saturday night.

The Canadiens had four power plays to work with in the opening period with the new cross checking clampdown working in their advantage. They were able to capitalize on a fortunate bounce when Josh Anderson rushed past the Maple Leafs defence and fired a wrist shot over the shoulder of Jack Campbell.

Then came their second power play goal and it was an absolute thing of beauty.

Jonathan Drouin starts off the play with the puck up high in the Maple Leafs zone. He steps away from and avoids the pressure from Ilya Mikheyev and slides a backhand pass to Josh Anderson in the high slot.

Anderson doesn’t have a lot of time as he is caught flat footed with the puck on his backhand, but he moves it away from his opponent on his hip and moves it back to the top of the point where Chris Wideman is stationed.

Wideman wastes no time, reading the play before the puck arrives and firing a pass across to Joel Armia.

Armia takes a quick look at all the open ice in front of him and spots Drouin streaking down lower into the attacking zone. He hesitates just long enough for a lane to open up between him and Drouin and rips a quick pass across the offensive zone.

Drouin, who is moving down low opens his shoulders to receive the pass and bends down low to one-touch a perfect pass to the front of the net.

Christian Dvorak is right at the top of the crease and quickly rotates his hips to turn toward the front of the net and makes no mistake redirecting the Drouin pass into the back of the net.

The Canadiens power play was hit or miss last season, going through long stretches of drought but then finding the back of the net at the right time through most of the postseason. It is yet to be determined what Wideman’s role will be on this team, but the four forwards on the ice for this power play beauty could form a pretty electric second unit behind the likes of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Mike Hoffman, Tyler Toffoli and Jeff Petry.