In the Habs’ Room: a near perfect game after the worst against the penguins

Article content

How can a team that played so bad on Thursday play so well on Saturday?

Article content

That was the question after the Canadiens followed up their worst game of the season, a 6-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, with a 6-3 win over Nashville on Saturday.

“I think we were a little pissed off,” said Artturi Lehkonen, who started on Saturday with his first goal of the season. “It was not a good effort against Pittsburgh. After the game, we couldn’t do anything about it, so we had to learn from him. “

“We are proud,” said coach Dominique Ducharme. He said the players didn’t like being embarrassed and that they practiced hard Friday in preparation for the Predators.

Ducharme reached into the coach’s bag of tricks and adjusted his lineup, dressing 11 forwards and seven defenders. He said that allowed him to adjust his defensive peers to certain situations, while rewarding his most productive forward with extra time on the ice with the fourth row.

Article content

Defender Chris Wideman, who was a healthy scratch Thursday, was used primarily in offensive situations and responded with assists on a pair of goals from Ryan Poehling, who scored them in a 38-second span on the same shift.

Poehling became the first Canadian to score two goals in less than 40 seconds since Guillaume Latendresse in 2006.

Poehling was on the ice just 12:22 and said playing 11 forwards kept the players focused.

“You are always in the know, you have to be ready at any moment because you don’t know when your name will be called,” Poehling said. “For a while, we were going with nine forwards, so it was frantic, but you were out there every third at-bats and it was nice to set the pace.”

Poehling said the game was completely different from the debacle against Pittsburgh.

Article content

“In preparation for this game, I thought that the team in general, and I in particular, were focused on working hard, not letting anyone beat us. We had so many opportunities and they came from working hard in zone D and that was good to see ”.

With the exception of a predictable collapse from the death penalty in the third period, it was a near-perfect game for the Canadiens. Matt Duchene scored two of his three goals in the power play when the fifth best power play in the NHL was 2 of 3 against the 28th-ranked penalty.

Brendan Gallagher, who scored his fourth goal of the season on the power play, said there was no panic when the Predators launched their comeback after falling behind 5-0.

“Two power play goals, sitting on the bench, we knew we were still in a good position,” Gallagher said. “The third enters, we do a three-minute job, which we did. We will look at it. They made some plays, they put the pucks in the net, but overall we liked our effort. “

Article content

Sam Montembeault played a strong game as he made 33 saves, including 15 in the first period when he allowed the Canadiens to protect a 1-0 lead.

As is too often the case in these one-sided games, tempers flared late in the second period and Josh Anderson showed his boxing skills when he threw a beating at Mathieu Olivier.

The Canadiens are back on the road for three games starting Wednesday in Washington. They have back-to-back games Friday at Buffalo and Saturday at Pittsburgh.

[email protected]

twitter.com/zababes1