Canadiens Showed Character Despite Loss To Jets

Anyone who’s looking at the score sheet without having seen the Canadiens versus Jets game would think they took a beating. They did, but the game was wild and showed tons of positive despite the score.

The Canadiens were set to play their second game in six days, a rarity in today’s calendar. After beating the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, Martin St. Louis’ squad was entering Winnipeg on a red hot 5 game winning streak. The Jets on the other hand were trying to rally from their own losing streak, not to mention a season that saw them lose Paul Maurice as their Head Coach, but also dwindle down the standings.

At the blink of an eye it was 4-0 Jets. The Canadiens came out flat and Samuel Montembeault allowed 4 goals in 6 shots. The goaltender immediately shot glances at his head coach but Martin St. Louis was having none of it. It wasn’t Montembeault’s fault and the coach knew it.

Barely 2 minutes after the Jets’ fourth goal, Josh Anderson gave the team some life scoring a goal where the puck had eyes.

The Power Horse wouldn’t end there as the Canadiens would finally put one in on the powerplay, reducing the margin to 4-2.

A couple of minutes later, it was Lehkonen’s turn to give the Habs a push and bring the score to 4-3 for the Jets. Clearly, he is not affected by all the trade rumors involving him.

The period ends with the Canadiens having grabbed all of the momentum. So much so that not even five minutes into the second period, Josh Anderson scores and gets his first career hat trick.

The fans who voted in a recent poll are correct not wanting to trade him. Anderson is definitely worth keeping through a rebuild if this is the kind of nightly show he can give us.

We got this right?

Don’t celebrate too fast because the Jets still have an offense that shouldn’t be messed with, and the Canadiens have a shaky blue line at best. The Jets took advantage of that after Jeff Petry took a penalty and the Jets took the lead 5-4 on the powerplay. End of the second period.

The third period is summed up easily. Brendan Gallagher, who’s having an atrocious season and only has one point in his last 16 games, took a penalty. 6-4 Jets. Shortly after Gallagher takes another penalty. The ice tilts and it’s suddenly 7-4 Jets and that was enough to finally shoo Samuel Montembeault from his net in favor of Andrew Hammond.

Despite two more power plays, which has been on of the Habs’ achilles heels this season, they couldn’t capitalize and the final score was 8-4.

Of course, prior to the game there were tons of talks as to what would happen between Mark Scheifele and Jake Evans. We all remember the brutal hit Evans took that resulted in a concussion. Scheifele claimed he doesn’t understand the “code” but would fight anyone who’s willing. Jake Evans had long moved on from the incident.

Turns out, Schiefele was the one who did the head hunting, going after players smaller than him. He finally got his wish when Chris Wideman, of all people, got fed up and threw the gloves down and got manhandled by the much bigger player. Scheifele then tried to pump the crowd up. By the way, the Jets were leading 7-4 at this point.

So you’re ahead 7-4 with 4 minutes to the game. Then you decide with your 6’3″ 210 pound frame to go after a guy who’s just under 5’10” and barely 180 pounds soaking wet and beat him up so you can show revenge from last year’s playoffs?

Stay classy Scheifele.

Circle Monday, April 11th on your calendar as the Jets will be in Montreal for their last meeting of the season.

The Canadiens showed tons of character despite getting beat up on the ice and on the scoreboard. Even after giving up four consecutive power play goals, you still felt that sense of urgency in their play. The top line did their job, Jake Evans did his thing and the support cast including Lehkonen and Ryan Poehling showed some nice flashes as well.

Martin St. Louis showed humility during the post-game press conference. Going as far as taking some of the blame himself by stating that he had trouble managing the bench due to all the penalties called during the game. The Jets went 4 for 8 on the power play while the Habs went 1 for 9.

The team surprisingly didn’t look all that defeated. They understood a winning streak will end at some point and this is one of those bizarro world games that happens once in a blue moon. Penalties galore, all out offence, etc. Once it’s all said and done, this is the type of game where you develop instant amnesia and move on.

The Canadiens will move on to Calgary on Thursday as they will face Tyler Toffoli and the Flames at 9PM ET.