Ah, NHL hockey, it’s been far too long. The road to the NHL season has officially kicked off, with the Montreal Canadiens just finishing their first preseason game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Habs and the Flyers haven’t had the most storied history together, their biggest altercation in recent memory being the Eastern Conference Final of 2010, where the Flyers ended the Habs Cinderella run. But the two teams will be linked for the next few years as both have two of the biggest young Russian stars in Matvei Michkov and Ivan Demidov.
Well, they played around with us for 2/3rds of the game, but really put it away in the third.
They went into the third up 1-0 off the strength of Jared Davidson’s effort and Luke Tuch’s goal. But the floodgates really opened in the third.
It started with David Savard (with a second Davidson assist), and within three minutes Emile Heineman and Josh Anderson (from a brilliant Joshua Roy) blew the game right open.
The test of the game went as expected with new Canadien Alex Barre-Boulet putting the fifth goal on the board.
The third star of the game was Alex Barre-Boulet. The second star was Oliver Kapanen. The first star was Lane Hutson.
The Goalies
As is tradition in most early preseason games, two goalies split the crease in this game. The first half was played by likely NHL backup Cayden Primeau, who was replaced halfway through the second period by Jakub Dobeš.
Obviously by the score there isn’t really anything negative to say about either keeper. Admittedly, the Flyers should have scored the first goal, as it doesn’t look like Primeau’s pads were pushed in by former Canadien Anthony Richard, but other than that he was poised and played well.