Monday night saw the Eastern Conference Final makes its debut at the Bell Centre and boy did the early atmosphere not disappoint. On the ice, the Habs needed a rebound much in a similar way the Hurricanes needed it after game one. Sure, the Habs got that game to overtime and could have stolen a win, but there is little denying that Carolina earned a game two win and it was Montreal who needed to hold serve and show that they could hang with the top ranked team in the Eastern Conference.
Instead, the game looked identical to the second one as the Hurricanes outlasted the Canadiens with another 3-2 overtime win. Looks like the Habs need to adjust going to game four on Wednesday night.
Habs Lineup
Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Juraj Slafkovsky
Alex Newhook – Jake Evans — Ivan Demidov
Alexandre Texier – Phillip Danault – Josh Anderson
Zach Bolduc – Joe Veleno – Kirby Dach
Mike Matheson – Noah Dobson
Jayden Struble — Lane Hutson
Kaiden Guhle – Alexandre Carrier
Jakub Dobes
10 Thoughts
1) It was another strong start for the Hurricanes, and one needs to wonder if the Canadiens could come out on home ice and do that to their opponents instead of always having to weather it. Might be hard to be the attacking team when so much blatant interference and free hand holds are being allowed. The interference is a common occurrence in this year’s playoffs (wasn’t that stuff exactly how we ended up in the dead puck era?) but the holds are hard to watch in this series. Regardless, Montreal ended up with an early power play that was atrocious. However, they did get on the board, tying the game at one with five to go in the period when Evans was able to put a puck behind double coverage to Demidov who found Matheson at the top of the corner. Matheson made no mistake.
2) The Canes continued to press after killing their penalty and they found a shift where Dach got running around. They finally isolated Dach and Shayne Gostisbehere was left alone to put home a puck that got there due to a fanned shot by Mark Jankowski. Tough luck for them there but also terrible coverage. A minute after Matheson tied the game at one, Anderson was slow to react to his coverage pinching down. This sent the Habs scrambling as K’Andre Miller fired the puck to the front of the net and Carrier lost two puck battles to Taylor Hall who found a rebound and made it 2-1. That score was not a terrible outcome for the Habs considering they had been outshot 15-5 in the period.
3) Kaiden Guhle spent too much time in the penalty box in the second period. He started the period there and then took another tripping call just after the halfway point. The Canadiens were able to keep Carolina off the scoreboard in the period as they were likely the better team in the period. This was purely an eye test observation as they still got outshot 10-6 in the period. They also got jobbed by Francis Charron (shocker) as Evans was somehow assessed a penalty on the play where Sean Walker charged and hit Dobes despite the fact he no longer had the puck.
4) The Habs did get an earlier man advantage in the period, and they made the Hurricanes pay, so maybe that’s what the officials were trying to prevent with the Evans call. After their first atrocious power play in the first, this time they did not use the back pass for zone entry as Caufield faked it and then committed to a give and go with Hutson all the way up the ice until they went around the Carolina penalty kill and Hutson was able to put home a pretty goal to tie the game.
5) The third period was played relatively tentatively by both teams as no one wanted to be the player committing the error to give the other team a lead. Just before the halfway point of the period, Dobson scored to give the Habs the lead. However, the Hurricanes were quick to challenge the play because Caufield was offside way before the scoring play. Frustrating to see the goal taken off the board, but it should have served as a point of reference, that wasn’t a good goal allowed by Frederik Andersen and the Habs needed to make less plays and get more pucks to the shaky goaltender. They did not and ultimately paid for it.
6) Dobson flirted with the notion of hero to zero as he was then penalized for interference. To be fair, the usually very sturdy Jordan Staal put up a pick and then went down like a sack of potatoes when he felt a slight bump by Dobson. If Buffalo complained that Montreal was falling down easy in the last round, and Suzuki was called for it earlier in the series, this Staal flop was the third such instance going the other way in the last two games, at a minimum. Tough to watch. The Habs were able to kill the penalty and the game was headed to overtime.
7) After game one, it was clear that Carolina had to adjust to the Habs as the Canadiens had figured out a way around the intense Hurricanes pressure. In my prediction piece, I wrote that this was precisely what Carolina was not good at in previous trips to the Conference Finals. After three periods in this contest, shots were once again 32-12 for the Hurricanes who made the adjustment and backed off in the neutral zone. After two such games, the pressure is now clearly on Martin St. Louis and the Habs to counter punch because they cannot continue with games that look like the last two, regardless of what was to come in overtime.
8) Early in the overtime period, Hutson found Suzuki behind Carolina’s defence for a breakaway. Suzuki made the right play and opted for the low blocker shot. The shot beat Andersen but just barely missed the net. A few seconds later, Matheson fired a shot from the top of the circle that rang off the crossbar, and the hockey gods just appeared to have decided this game in those two moments. Perhaps a bit of karma though as the Hurricanes remained the better team for most of this game.
9) Professional sports have become too fast for the human eye. Add the ability for the common fan to have access to instant replay and tribalist fandom and the result is an officiating problem. The NBA and NFL bury their heads in the sand and pretend it’s non-existent while MLB is actively trying to use technology to save themselves from this fact (they also had the biggest officiating problem before the ABS implementation). The NHL goes the other way and “game manages” which really only makes everything worse. In trying not to affect the outcome in this particular overtime game, the officials completely destroyed any semblance of legitimacy the outcome could have had. Two or three blatant refusals to call penalties on the Hurricanes led to the most egregious miss of all where the Habs were clearly caught with too many men on the ice and the officials had no choice but to not call it. The Bell Centre would have turned into a riot if that was called and rightfully so.
20) Instead of exchanging power plays in what would have been correct calls, the overtime hero in this game was Andrei Svechnikov who intercepted a soft cross-ice pass by Lane Hutson to establish zone time before he got the puck back and put it on net beating Dobes who was heavily screened by Sebastian Aho and Slafkovsky. All of it at five-on-five as the officials become a point of contention for both team’s fans as opposed to discussing what was a very entertaining hockey game.
HabsWorld Habs 3 Stars
1st Star – Mike Matheson
After a rough game two, Matheson was Montreal’s best defender on the night, and it was not particularly close. Many will be quick to point out that Hutson was his dynamic self on the night and they would be correct. However, the interference being run by the Hurricanes is an element Hutson is having a hard time adjusting too. So far, he seems to be increasing his risk-level to try to counter it and it’s coming back with mixed results. Matheson played a strong and safe game while correctly identifying when it was time to jump in and support the attack.
Stats: 1 goal, +1, 1 shot, 29:23 T.O.I.
2nd Star – Jakub Dobes
Not sure what there is left to say about Dobes. It was another stellar performance that came with some adventures and getting bailed out by excellent shot blocking. Once he was charged by Walker at the end of the second period, he was going to respond and the Habs could have easily won the game three to four times after this while he was as solid as can be until the overtime winner.
Stats: 35 saves on 38 shots, 2.45 G.A.A., .921 save %, 74:06 T.O.I.
3rd Star – Noah Dobson
Dobson had slowly ramped up his game throughout the Buffalo series and this was his best of the playoffs. He should have been rewarded with the game winner, but it was not to be. Let’s hope he continues to get better as games move forward because the Habs are going to need the top of their roster to come up huge in the next few games if they want to make a series out of this.
Stats: -1, 3 shots, 1 hit, 25:34 T.O.I.