The Montreal Canadiens and the Philadelphia Flyers treated fans to a fast-paced and action packed first frame in the city of brotherly love tonight. There was almost some rough stuff after Sean Couturier almost landed a questionable hit on Kirby Dach, but Nick Seeler neutralized Arber Xhekaj before anything could happen and somehow, the Canadiens’ tough guy was the only one sanctioned on the play, go figure.
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Still, we also saw some good hockey plays, the Canadiens’ knocked on the Flyers’ goal door often and did managed to get the first goal of the game when Nick Suzuki scored from in close. The Flyers were able to tie up the score on a shot from far out that looked non-threatening, but it was deflected by Jake Evans and the score was tied 1-1 after 20 minutes.
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Just like he had in the first period, Lane Hutson put the Flyers under siege early in the second with a dominating shift in which no one could get the puck away from him. The Canadiens really took charge in the middle frame, and Brendan Gallagher shone brightly. After getting crosschecked in the back by the boards (no penalty was called), the alternate captain jumped back up and headed to the net. He got there right on time to stick out his leg as a Mailloux booming shot was going to the net and he scored, 2-1 Habs.
Then, the Habs make the most of a power play when Cole Caufield scored his eight of the season with helpers from Suzuki and Matheson. Four minutes later, Evans was the target of one of the slowest pass ever by the net in Caufield’s office, result? He “Caufielded” it, giving the Canadiens a 4-1 lead. Nothing to make John Tortorella any happier with his team’s performance.
Back to Gallagher, he also drew a penalty in a tussle with rookie Matvei Michkov, there was a lot of pushing around and as Gallagher was giving him his best “you’re not getting to me rookie” he slashed him out of frustration and got himself an all inclusive trip to the penalty box, enjoy the water break kid.
The Canadiens made things scarier than they needed to be, surrendering a couple of late goals and the Flyers were able to bring the score to 4-3 and had Montreal under siege for a good last minute and a half, but they hung on, a tight win in the end.
It wasn’t a perfect game by any means, but at least the Habs got the two points which means that after nine games, they have four wins and nine points, that is to say the exact same record as the Buffalo Sabres, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings. It brings them up to the 18th place in the standings, much better than the 26th spot they were sat in before.
Brendan Gallagher who notched a goal and an assist tonight was named the first star, not only because of the two points, but also because his goal was his 221st which allowed him to tie Guy Carbonneau as the 21st top goal scorer with the storied franchise. Furthermore, even though the point production hasn’t been there for Gally since the start of the year (aside from on two-goal game early one), he has been excellent and as devoted as ever. The Gallagher-Evans duo is the new Gallagher-Lehkonen duo, the pair who’s work ethic you need to follow.
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Captain Suzuki also got two points on the night, which allowed him to keep his point streak going, he now has 11 points in his last seven games. He was blanked in the first couple of games of the year, but since then, the captain’s been dialed in.
Defensively, it wasn’t as good an effort as it was on Saturday night, but Cayden Primeau did well to limit the damage, at least until there was three minutes left to the game. Logan Mailloux had a couple of defensive lapses, getting himself completely out of the play at one stage to finish a check and there was one play on which he and Xhekaj both lost their sticks as they were backing off to defend. It could have been a disaster, but the worst was avoided.
Martin St-Louis was understandably happy in his post-game media availability, he felt like his team reaped the benefits of the hard work it put in this week in practice. The coach mentioned his team is much closer to the version of itself it wants to be. On Gallagher, he mentioned that when you do the right things, good things happen for you.
It was the first time this season the Canadiens managed to win two games in a row and it will be interesting to see if they can keep the sequence going on Tuesday when they host the struggling Seattle Kraken who have lost their last three games in Montreal.
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