Montreal Canadiens: 24 Thoughts On Habs Embarrassing Defensive Effort Vs Vegas
Second Period Thoughts
A little bit of the good and the bad with Matheson early in the second period. He made a great rush and cut to the slot to create a fantastic scoring chance on the power play, though Adin Hill robbed him with a left pad save. A few seconds later Matheson jumps up again and then fires a shot well wide of the net on the far side which sends two Golden Knights on a two-on-one against Cole Caufield.
Brett Howden scores on the rush and Primeau allows his first goal on the 19th shot he faced and we are just a couple minutes into the second period. Habs defense doing Primeau no favors, and seconds after the goal against, Mark Stone walks into the slot all alone and is robbed by a calm and confident Primeau who reaches up with the glove to keep the score 2-1.
Habs are looking pretty awful defensively, but the Golden Knights are the Stanley Cup champs for a reason. They pressure like crazy from every angle and give Canadiens players no time at all to think with the puck as they are just all over them, swarming like a hive of bees.
And just like that, Jesse Ylonen takes advantage of that aggression from the Knights. Both defenseman jumped up to try and play a loose puck after a faceoff in the Canadiens zone and Ylonen knocks it past both of them and has a breakaway from his own zone. He dekes to the forehand and roofs the puck just under the bar with an exceptional shot.
It is just Ylonen’s second goal in ten games but he has a great shot and needs to have a spot on this team moving forward. So do Joshua Roy and Sean Farrell and Filip Mesar is looking pretty good in the OHL these days. Lane Hutson and David Reinbacher are near locks to be on the team next season with Logan Mailloux pushing as well. It is not a good time to be 28 or older on this team as they are likely to be pushed out by this young wave of players within the next year.
This is painful to watch for Primeau. He has been unbelievable but defensive breakdowns just keep occurring in front of him and odd man rushes keep coming at him. A couple of quick goals against after an icing because of extended defensive zone pressure and a bad turnover and it is 3-3.
You don’t see this very often. Arber Xhekaj gets levelled in the corner as he and Ivan Barbashev go for a loose puck. He seems to be favoring his shoulder a bit as he goes back to the bench and then heads to the dressing room with the trainer. Not many players can take down Xhekaj like that and it was a clean hit that hopefully didn’t result in an injury.
Only 5:38 of ice time for Ylonen after two periods and he has two goals and nearly a third. May as well move him up the lineup into Josh Anderson’s spot for the third period at this rate.
Third Period Thoughts
No Xhekaj for the third period as the team announced he will not return. That’s not good, especially with how poor the team is playing defensively already tonight. Maybe they will remember how to defend if they are even more tired?
Brendan Gallagher was right to rip the referees after the last game. Juraj Slafkovsky shows a nice burst of speed on the forecheck after dumping the puck in and gets called for holding because him and the Knights defensemen kind of leaned on each other and then fell down. No grab or hold there, just a good forecheck and two players getting into a position where they can’t be thrown into the boards. Weak call.
The Knights are so good at setting up chances right on the door step on the power play. They have had close to a dozen chances that just hopped over a stick or redicrected just wide or the forward just mishandled the pass and fumbled away a chance.
Referees don’t miss when Justin Barron clips a Golden Knight with a high stick but when Vegas defender steps up and clips Tanner Pearson there’s no call…. inconsistency is just so frustrating.
Speaking of Pearson, he has had a couple of top notch chances in this game but has not been able to convert. Which is similar to many other Canadiens players I suppose. Pearson has been playing well since the start of the season, though he has not been rewarded lately, and it is great to see after the veteran winger missed so much time last season with various injuries.
Now Gallagher clips Pavel Dorofeyev of the Knights with a high stick. Clearly a penalty, and Dorofeyev is clearly bleeding as well which means it should absolutely be a four minute penatly. The referee calls it, checks on Dorofeyev and then clearly signals a two minutes penalty by raising his two fingers. He also says something to William Karlsson which the Knights center respons to by shrugging and saying okay which can only mean he said he was going to review it. The problem is you can only review four minute penalties and that is not what he called. The review takes several minutes for some reason and then Gallagher gets four minutes and they claim that was the original call. Even when referees eventually get the right call, they show how poor they are at their job.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on the shot clock throughout the game (mostly because I feel bad for Primeau) and it keeps going down at times? It was at 36, Primeau made a save and froze it, there was a commercial and when it came back the shots were at 35. How did it go down one? Same thing happened later as it was at 40, Primeau made a save, then Gallagher took his penalty and somehow the shots dropped to 39. What is happening?
Jack Eichel scored while Gallagher was in the box, but then Primeau robbed Jonathan Marchessault on a cross crease one-timer with a great stretch save. Mark Stone adds another on the power play with Gallagher still in the box to make it six. Half a dozen goals against never looks good but Primeau was incredible tonight.
Next. Roy and Farrell developing nicely with Laval Rocket. dark
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