The second half of Montreal’s trip to Florida saw them take on the Panthers on Thursday night. Once again, it was a struggle as Aleksander Barkov had a hat-trick in the first period as Florida skated to an easy 7-2 win.
The Habs were a bit sluggish coming out of the holiday break and that’s never a good thing against Tampa Bay. The Lightning came to play in this one, controlling the game throughout en route to a 4-1 victory.
With David Savard and Mike Matheson both out, the Habs have recalled defenceman Justin Barron from Laval.
Penalties have been a problem for the Habs this season and that trend continued heading into the holiday break. However, Montreal managed to pick up three points in spite of that in the first leg of their road trip.
The Habs looked to hit the holiday break on a high note as they travelled to Dallas on Friday to take on the Stars. They started off well but penalty trouble came back to bite them as they fell 4-2.
With the quarter mark recently having passed, we wrap up our first quarter report cards. This time, the focus is on the goalies and defencemen.
Jake Allen had a strong showing in Colorado on Monday night but while he was able to steal the Habs one point, Montreal couldn’t come away with the other as the Avalanche picked up the 2-1 overtime victory.
The Habs made their first-ever visit to Mullett Arena in Arizona on Monday night to take on the Coyotes. The game was tied for the majority of regulation but Montreal picked up the extra point as Mike Hoffman buried the winner to give them the 3-2 victory.
The week got off to a decent start for the Habs but they were unable to sustain it as they dropped their last three for their second three-game losing streak of the season. Montreal also got some disappointing news on the prospect front with a pair of players being cut from Canada’s World Junior camp.
The Habs were looking to close out the home portion of their 2022 schedule on a winning note on Saturday night against Tampa Bay. It didn’t happen. They were down early and couldn’t recover, falling 5-2.