“It just keeps happening to us that we have to claw back into games, and that’s not where we want to be,” Nick Suzuki stated.
For instance, if the Canadiens had not fallen behind 3-0 to Detroit in the first period, how might Saturday night’s events have gone differently? Or had they converted a two-man advantage that lasted 61 seconds in the second period without a shot being made?
Or had captain Nick Suzuki—who lost to Dylan Larkin—taken the faceoff at the beginning of overtime instead of Christian Dvorak, the head coach of the Canadiens? From that point on, Montreal was never able to bounce back and would hardly touch the puck at all before the inevitable happened.
At 54 seconds into overtime, Red Wings forward Jake Walman beat goalie Jake Allen with a blast to the glove side, leading the team to a hard-fought 5-4 victory over the Canadiens at the Bell Centre. Montreal will certainly find comfort in the point it won and in the fact that it overcame deficits of 3-0 and 4-2 to score two goals in quick succession in the third period, forcing extra time.
Whatever you think of the rebuilding Canadiens, they don’t give up easily. And that’s a noble quality, especially because it was their third game in four nights.
“I reflect on the initial years of my profession,” intelligent defenseman Mike Matheson remarked. You find yourself playing 82 games all of a sudden. Recently, we’ve been playing a lot of hockey. Being able to put on a great show each and every night is something that is somewhat underappreciated. I believe that’s kind of the nature of the beast when you have a youthful bunch.
It seems like everyone is concentrating on it. It’s not a lack of concern, work ethic, or anything of the sort, in my opinion. All you have to do is get used to it.
The visitors took a three-goal lead with to goals from Joe Veleno, Christian Fischer, and Daniel Sprong. However, shortly before the half, Justin Barron, a defenseman for Montreal, reduced that margin with his fifth goal.
Fischer’s careless goal was very worrisome. Barron lost the puck to Michael Rasmussen as he skated in on a breakaway at the start of the sequence. Although Allen made the initial stop, he was unable to locate the puck and gave up a rebound. As if that weren’t awful enough, Fischer was the first to notice the concerning lack of Canadiens back-checking.
“I made a breakaway save and was going blocker side,” the sixth-consecutive start loser Allen stated. “To be honest, I have no idea what the heck occurred when that enormous man came crashing down on me. The location of the puck eluded me.
We obviously didn’t play well in the first half of the match. We managed to continue playing the game. Finding a method to draw a lesson from it is undoubtedly a plus, but there are still certain areas we need to improve.
Four minutes into the second half, Joel Armia cut the deficit to one goal, but 47 seconds later, Alex DeBrincat scored on a power play to give Detroit a two-goal lead again. In addition to being his 200th goal overall, it was DeBrincat’s 13th goal of the season.
Later in the game, the Canadiens will regret giving up the two-man advantage. At that point, Montreal’s first power-play unit had been playing for about a minute. Though he wanted to store it for later, just in case, St. Louis considered taking a break to rejuvenate his skaters.
St. Louis clarified, “If it’s later in the game, maybe, but I thought I might need that timeout later if we scored one there.” “The lads responded positively when I asked if they were okay. I was going to give it a call if they told me they weren’t.
The Canadiens’ first man-advantage goal since November 12 was scored by Suzuki at 4:12 of the third period on a power play. Gustav Lindström, a defender, then equalized at 16:01. This season, Montreal has scored 68 goals, with 20 coming from defensemen.
Suzuki, who won 13 of 17 faceoffs (76%) stated, “It just keeps happening to us that we have to claw back into games, and that’s not where we want to be.” We had a terrible first session. That is definitely not possible. It keeps putting us in danger. Of course, we battled back fiercely, but
Detroit improved to 13-7-3 with the win, its fifth in the last six games. The Canadiens, who are now 10-11-3, will host Seattle on Monday night after honoring the Grey Cup-winning Alouettes in a pregame ceremony.
