Canadiens: 24 Thoughts On Habs Frustrating Game With Flames

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The Montreal Canadiens welcome the Calgary Flames to the Bell Centre. It is the Habs 16th game of the season and they remain in the middle of the pack in their division.

The Flames are a fairly desperate team as they got off to a rough start and all anyone can talk about is how many defensemen they are going to trade away this season and where they will end up.

Here are 24 Thoughts on the Canadiens game vs the Calgary Flames.

First Period Thoughts

The game starts with a ceremony for Pierre Turgeon as he is added to the Canadiens Ring of Honor after being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Congratulations to Pierre!

Although, this just makes me wonder how good the Canadiens could have been in the late 1990’s if they just didn’t trade away all their good players. Imagine if they just kept Turgeon, Vincent Damphousse, John LeClair, Eric Desjardins and, oh yeah, Patrick Roy.

Sam Montembeault gets the start but I though this was the perfect game for Cayden Primeau. He looked great in his last start and the Flames are one of the worst offensive teams in the league. Would have been a sensible spot for the youngster after Allen and Montembeault split the two games on the weekend.

No one will be shocked by this but Cole Caufield has a really good shot. I know he hasn’t scored a ton at even strength this season, but I was certain he just had the puck on his backhand and then he fired a laser of a forehand wrist shot that hit Jacon Markstrom in the mask. That’s an NHL goalie that had literally no idea where that puck came from. He probably thought a crow got in the rink and ran into his helmet because it made zero sense that a shot came from that angle and that hard based on where Caufield was positioned.

Jesse Ylonen did not enjoy being a healthy scratch and obviously never wants to go back there. He just had a shift where he led the play on a two on one break because of his speed, though it was stymied by the defenders. Then he came flying back on the back check and dropped a Flames player with a heavy hit at open ice that caused a turnover. He then quickly fired a laser of a pass up to Rafael Harvey-Pinard who nearly split the defense as he received the pass to create a scoring chance. Great two-way shift from Ylonen who has some jump early on and looks good with RHP and Jake Evans.

Juraj Slafkvosky jumps into the rush, drops his shoulder and heads for the net before popping a pass across to Caufield who gets a great scoring chance. I think we will be seeing an awful lot of that in Montreal for a very long time.

Fourth line finishes the period with a flurry of chances. RHP-Evans-Ylonen has a little bit of everything and provide the Habs with incredible depth as they can all defend well and have the ability to add a bit of offense when they get the opportunity. That is a solid fourth line.

Good to see a balanced attack in that period, though it led to zero goals. Caufield led the forwards in ice time with 6:12 and Ylonen played the least at 3:05. Everyone on pace for 9:15 – 18:36 in this game with most players pretty tight in the middle. Saw scoring chances from every line as well as Josh Anderson nearly scored, Brendan Gallagher somehow missed a tap-in on a cross ice pass, Slafkovsky set up Caufield for a great chance and the fourth line was buzzing as well.

Nov 14, 2023; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Montreal Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports /

Second Period Thoughts

A weird spinaround shot from the center of the slot fools Montembeault as Nazem Kadri opens the scoring. That won’t help with his current contract negotiations!

Seriously though, what does a Montembeault extension look like? He’s 27 years old and has a career save percentage of .896. Sounds like a contract is coming, at least according to Elliotte Friedman, but what do you give someone like Montembeault? My guess is two years at $3 million per year if it gets done.

Gustav Lindstrom scores his first with the Canadiens, but it was started by some nice board play by Slafkovsky again. He chased down a loose puck and found some space by spinning quickly off a defender and getting the puck to Christian Dvorak down low. Well deserved assist for the youngster.

Soeaking of Dvorak, his play has been great lately. He is constantly setting up teammates with nice passes and does a lot of little things defensively as well to limit chances and get the puck on a Canadiens player’s stick. Not a ton of points after missing the first ten games, but he continues to look good out there.

Kaiden Guhle nearly got a skate to the face as he fell awkwardly right off a faceoff. He stayed down for a moment but skated off and looks to have been whacked in the nose with Elias Lindholm’s boot and not the skate blade. He’s lucky, but you have to think with everything going on in the hockey world that players would be more willing to wear neck guards and anti-cut protective gear. Like, how is it not mandatory yet?

I have been critical of Anderson’s game at times but this is just getting laughable. He has been fantastic lately but can’t buy a goal. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, maybe Artturi Lehkonen when he was here. Anderson just had another great chance in the slot and somehow the puck goes off the iron and into the crowd. I think it hit an invisible wall that appears in the net whenever Anderson shoots the puck.

Good luck to all other left shot defenders, and that includes Mike Matheson, Jordan Harris and Arber Xhekaj in finding ice time with this team next season. Guhle and Lane Hutson are going to take over the left side of the defense very soon. Guhle looks terrific again tonight and his combination of size, speed and smarts is difficult to match.

Caufield has seven shots on goal after two periods of play but is yet to score. Won’t take him long if he keeps up this pace. I doubted that Dvorak was the right centre with Caufield and it probably doesn’t last long term, but it has looked great tonight.

Nov 14, 2023; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Montreal Canadiens forward Rafael Harvey-Pinard. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports /

Third Period Thoughts

Flames are 4-8-2 on the season and there is a lot of chatter that they will trade away a handful of defensemen before the trade deadline. Seems like a nice time to remind everyone that the Canadiens own their 2025 first round draft pick. They have that pick because they were willing to take Sean Monahan from the Flames. Monahan has six goals and 13 points this season, both of those would lead the Flames right now.

Just as I typed that Andrew Mangiapane scored his fifth of the year which puts him in the team lead for the Flames. Still one back of Monahan on the season. Ouuu challenge on the play!! I love this rule when the other team scores. When is the last time one of these was not overturned? Still 2-1 Flames and Monahan still has two more goals than any Flames player this season.

Speaking of Flames and not scoring, I remember desperately hoping Jonathan Huberdeau would become a free agent in 2023 and sign with the Canadiens, but that was a couple years ago. Yikes does he look bad and he only makes $10.5 million for seven more years after this one.

Matheson has looked a lot better tonight. Always willing to jump into the play and can help create offense, but he has been smarter picking his spots and not getting caught defensively. He’s been burned a bunch of times in recent games by being a little too aggressive trying to create offense from nothing, but is playing a really controlled, smart game. Or, the Flames just really suck offensively.

Caufield gets a glorious chance at the side of the net but for the first time tonight missed the net. His shot was from a nearly impossible angle, but he has been hitting the net from everywhere. He had Markstrom out of his crease and just missed tying the game on the power play.

Ooooops, I shouldn’t have said anything about Matheson. He makes a questionable drop pass on the power play which puts Caufield into an impossible spot and the Flames end up on a two-on-nobody shorthanded though they do fire the puck over the glass.

The referees have done a great job not stepping into the middle of this one, until there was three minutes left. Brendan Gallagher is battling at the side of the net and gets an inexplicable call for tripping.

Good game by Montembeault, Habs looked really good most of the night but sometimes the puck just won’t go in. Starting to feel really bad for Anderson. It was annoying that he hadn’t scored in five or six games but now it is 16 and he is doing everything right and it just won’t go in the net.

Next. Bold Trades To Take Advantage of Struggling Contenders. dark

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