The heavily short-handed Habs played a perfect and boring road game for all of 55 minutes on Saturday. With five minutes to play, they gave the Bruins an inch too much and seven minutes later, Boston fans were elated with their 2-1 overtime victory over the rival Habs.
The Habs and Alex Galchenyuk had an offensive explosion on their way to defeating the New York Islanders by a 6-3 score on Friday night although the win came at a cost health-wise.
The Canadiens continued their recent surge while defeating the Islanders on home ice. The 3-1 final score likely doesn’t do the Islanders justice as they created many scoring chances only to face Antti Niemi who played fantastic in this one.
The Habs, led by Antti Niemi, put forth a very strong effort on Saturday night but it wasn’t enough to beat the Lightning who prevailed 4-3 in a shootout.
Victor Mete played a bigger role and Noah Juulsen made his NHL debut on Thursday night. The Habs put forth one of their better efforts as of late, beating the Rangers 3-1 to snap their six-game slide
Despite playing a solid road game, the Habs continued their losing ways on Tuesday night, this time dropping a 3-2 overtime decision to the Flyers.
In what was another erratic team performance, the Habs lost their fifth straight contest on Saturday, 6-3 to Vegas. This one came with a bit of a silver lining as Coach Julien assembled a line of younger players that played an excellent second half of the game.
It was another road game and another inexcusably poor effort by the Habs in Arizona as they fell 5-2 on Thursday night. Coaches and management can say they still believe in this season until they are blue in the face but it seems apparent that many in the locker room are not on the same page.
It was much of the same from the Canadiens on Thursday night. They played reasonably well, were aggressive on the puck, but ultimately couldn’t score as they fell 2-0 to Carolina to give the Hurricanes the sweep of the season series.
A strong start to the game defensively wasn’t enough for the Habs who fell 3-1 to St. Louis in their first game following the All-Star Break.