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The Canadiens arrived in St. Louis on Saturday for the penultimate game of their road trip, to face the Blues just 18 hours after the home team had held off the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3. Well rested, and with Mike Matheson back in the lineup, everything on the stage was set for the Habitants to continue their strong road showings with a win at the Gateway City.

Everything, that is, other than Jordan Binnington, recently selected to the Canadian Olympic team in spite of his struggles this season. Binnington was superb, foiling all the chances the Habs were able to generate, with the suffocating St. Louis defence helping him in the process. Two goals against, both on defensive miscues, were no stain on Jacob Fowler’s performance. The Habs still have an impressive 12-4-5 road record and remain in third in the Atlantic, only two points back of Detroit with two games in hand.

Habs Starting Lines

Caufield – Suzuki – Texier
Slafkovsky – Kapanen – Demidov
Bolduc – Danault – Gallagher
Blais – Veleno – Beck

Matheson – Dobson
Hutson – Carrier
Xhekaj – Struble

Fowler
Dobes

Ten Thoughts

1) The Habs took the ice with three recent Blues players on the roster. Zachary Bolduc, of course, was one of the highlights of the team’s offseason trading, arriving from St. Louis in exchange for defensive prospect Logan Mailloux. The Canadiens added Samuel Blais as a free agent in July, after spending a season in the AHL, and then signed Alexandre Texier after the Blues terminated his contract in November. A chance for those three to show what the Blues gave up in letting them go, perchance?

2) Noah Dobson was called for a high stick at 2:27 for an early penalty, on what was clearly a follow-through of a clearing shot. The Blues’ power play, as unproductive as it has been this year, still looked dangerous, but the Montreal penalty kill worked well and prevented any shots from reaching Jacob Fowler.

3) Just after the halfway point, Bolduc made a rushed cross-ice pass in the defensive zone, missing Jayden Struble by enough for Otto Stenberg to pick up the puck instead. Stenberg sent it to Cam Fowler (no relation to Jacob), who quickly forwarded it back to Jonatan Berggren. With (Jacob) Fowler drawn out of position, the St. Louis winger had lots of space to shoot at, and his shot gave the Blues a 1-0 lead.

4) Montreal’s selective shooting approach was not working well in the first period, as the Blues’ defence was able to keep them away from good scoring chances. The pass count was high, but the bleu blanc et rouge didn’t get the second shot until the 13-minute mark. The final shot count in the period was 8-8, but that seriously flattered the Canadiens’ play, as four of those eight shots were recorded by Brendan Gallagher–in the final 13 seconds of the period.

5) Martin St-Louis made some adjustments to the game plan during the first intermission, attempting to counter the Blues’ neutral-zone pressure on both the forecheck. However, the immediate dividends were not there, as the Blues continued to out-hustle, outshoot, and out-chance the Canadiens in the second. The only notable scoring chance the visitors had in the first half of the second was a Phillip Danault deflection–that went wide.

6) Things went from bad to worse once Pavel Buchnevich got called for tripping Alexandre Carrier behind Fowler’s net. The Habs could not record a single shot on net, and then Lane Hutson lost the puck to Robert Thomas just outside the St. Louis zone. With Hutson the only defender on the power play unit, it was left to Ivan Demidov to try to defend against Thomas, and the veteran centre was able to execute a give-and-go passing play with Alexey Toropchenko, and Thomas was able to slide the return pass past Fowler for a shorthanded goal and a 2-0 lead.

7) Carrier drew another tripping penalty three minutes after the goal, sending Brayden Schenn to the box. The power play looked more aggressive from the start, and Nick Suzuki might have been able to swat in a loose puck in the crease, but he was high-sticked by Colton Parayko, giving Montreal a solid 1:37 of two-man advantage. The stats showed 11 shot attempts and six saves by Binnington during the two penalties, but the Blues goaltender was not having any of it.

8) Gallagher was penalized for hooking in the dying seconds of the power play, but the man advantage was largely a nothing-burger with only one shot on Fowler. After that, the Habs did manage another spurt of energy to close the period, with Binnington making a save on Bolduc with four seconds remaining.

9) The third was better, and Danault had another good look early that went wide of the net, but most of the shot attempts–the Habs actually held a 7-4 edge in shots in the final frame–were wide of the net, and Binnington appeared to handle with ease the ones that did get through. The Blues’ defensive system was still suffocating the Habs’ puck movement, and that significantly reduced the number of good scoring chances they could create.

10) They still managed to get close after pulling Fowler out with some three minutes remaining, and Suzuki had an excellent chance to smash in a loose puck from in front of Binnington, but the veteran got his pad out to block that shot and foil the scoring opportunity. The first shutout of the year, then, for Binnington, who has struggled for much of this year–and the second time this year that the Habs have been blanked.

HW Habs Three Stars

First Star: Brendan Gallagher (0g, 0a, 6 shots, -2, 14:19 TOI) was a fiend near Binnington’s net, and gave his all for the team once again. The -2 reflects the two defensive errors (Bolduc and Hutson) made while he was on the ice and do not reflect on Gallagher’s play. He couldn’t put the puck past Binnington on his six shots, but neither could anyone else on this night, either.

Second Star: Jacob Fowler (19 shots, 17 saves, .895 save percentage, +0.08 GSAx) kept the Habs in the game, handling both the high-danger shots as well as the earlier ones. Both goals had a distinct absence of Habs defenders helping him out.

Third Star: Noah Dobson (0g, 0a, 3 shots, +0, 27:23 TOI) showed again the reason Kent Hughes traded for him, playing over 27 minutes in the game as Mike Matheson was being eased back into the lineup next to him. He played a solid game against the Blues’ top lines and was steady and largely mistake-free on the night.