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.
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