Artturi Lehkonen’s two goals aren’t enough for Canadiens to win

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Artturi Lehkonen scored two more goals, but a mistake by Jeff Petry ended up costing the Canadiens as they lost 5-3 to the Canucks Wednesday night in Vancouver.

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The teams were tied 2-2 when JT Miller stripped Petry of the puck at center ice less than four minutes into the third period and went in alone on goalie Sam Montembeault, beating him high to the glove side for his 23rd goal of the season. Just over five minutes later, Elias Pettersson scored a power-play goal to put the Canucks up 4-2.

Rem Pitlick cut the Canucks’ lead to 4-3 when he scored at 15:35 of the third period with Montembeault on the bench for an extra attacker, but Bo Horvat scored an empty-netter at 19:02 to clinch the victory. Brock Boeser and Travis Hamonic also scored for the Canucks.

The Canadiens saw their two-game win streak come to an end and they finish their four-game Western Canada road trip with a 2-2 record. The Canadiens remain in last place in the overall NHL standings with a 15-35-7 record, one point behind the Arizona Coyotes (17-35-4).

Lehkonen opened the scoring at 12:41 of the first period on a nice setup from Jake Evans on a two-on-one, extending his point streak to five games. Lehkonen’s second goal at 14:22 of the second period tied the score 2-2 — giving him six goals in the last five games — and he later added an assist on PItlick’s goal. Lehkonen now has 13 goals this season, tied with Nick Suzuki for second on the team, two behind Josh Anderson. With 13-15-28 totals, Lehkonen is five goals short of his career high from his rookie season in 2016-17 and two points shy of his career high set in 2018-19 when he had 11-20-31 totals.

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Lehkonen can become a restricted free agent this summer and there’s no doubt Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes will be getting more offers for the 26-year-old forward’s services as his stock keeps going up. Petry could also be on the move before the March 21 NHL trade deadline, but the third-period giveaway wo n’t improve his stock of him.

Hughes told Sportsnet’s Eric Engels this week that he’s not trying to trade Lehkonen. But the GM added he wasn’t specifically trying to trade Tyler Toffoli, either, before the Calgary Flames made an offer he thought made sense and a deal was done. When asked about Petry, Hughes told Engels: “I’ve said if we can move him, we’ll move him. It has to be a solution that makes sense for our organization, too, because he is a good hockey player.”

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Lehkonen and Petry have both played much better in the 12 games since Martin St. Louis took over from Dominique Ducharme as head coach and the Canadiens have a 7-5-0 record in those games. In fact, every player on the Canadiens has looked better with St. Louis behind the bench, with the exception of Joel Armia. Petry struggled badly under Ducharme and his mistake against the Canucks was another bad one.

This was the first game for the Canadiens since they won 5-2 over the Oilers Saturday night in Edmonton.

“I feel like I’ve been in Vancouver for two weeks,” St. Louis said after Wednesday’s morning skating. “But there’s not many breaks in the schedule like that that allows your team to really check out a little bit. It’s such a demanding league, mentally and physically, that when you have that time you got to take advantage of it and just get away from the game for a few days and I think we did that.”

The Canadiens will fly back to Montreal on Thursday and play the Seattle Kraken Saturday night at the Bell Centre. It will be the first game at the Bell Center with full capacity allowed since Dec. 9, when the Canadiens lost 2-0 to the Chicago Blackhawks.

St. Louis should receive a very warm welcome from Montreal fans.

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