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.