Hockey

The habs once again slaughtered in front of their fans
Félix Forget
The habs once again slaughtered in front of their fans
Credit: DansLesCoulisses.com

After losing to the Blues on Sunday night, the Habs were back in action this evening, as the Tampa Bay Lightning came to town.

Jakub Dobes was again in goal for the Habs.

Here's the line-up, unchanged since the last game:

The Lightning, meanwhile, were without the services of Andrei Vasilevskiy, so it was Jonas Johansson who was in front of the visitors' net.

Here's the line-up Jon Cooper sent into the fray:

The Lightning were shut out in their last two games before arriving in Montreal… and clearly, the club wanted to end that ugly streak quickly.

It didn't even take three minutes for Brayden Point to open the scoring by taunting Jayden Struble.

Then, in the next few minutes, Pontus Holmberg was forgotten when he came out of the penalty box… and found himself on a breakaway.

This allowed him to double his team's lead.

And in the final minutes of the period, the Habs were dreadful in their own zone, as they left Nikita Kucherov completely alone.

The Russian scored his team's third goal.

After 20 minutes, the score was 3-0 in favor of the Lightning.

In the second period, Samuel Montembeault took Dobes' place in front of the net… but it didn't make much difference: he allowed a goal on the first shot he saw.

It was Québécois Charle-Édouard D'Astous who scored.

The good news is that the Habs showed signs of life at the end of the period. They took advantage of a power play and scored their first goal of the game.

Oliver Kapanen pounced on a loose puck in front of the net to complete a beautiful sequence initiated by Ivan Demidov and Nick Suzuki.

After 40 minutes, the score was 4-1 in favor of the Lightning.

The Habs were hoping to take advantage of some momentum early in the third… but the Lightning made sure not to let them back into the game.

Darren Raddysh scored from a tight angle for his team's fifth goal.

And within minutes, an Arber Xhekaj penalty put the Lightning back on the powerplay.

This allowed Raddysh to score his second of the period.

The final minutes of the match were played out in front of half-empty stands. At the end of the game, the fans once again applauded (in derision) Montembeault's basic saves.

Josh Anderson also threw down the gloves against Scott Sabourin late in the game.

Final score: 6-1 Tampa Bay

The Canadiens return to action on Thursday night, when they travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins.


Extension

– Once again, the Habs suffered a heavy defeat at the Bell Centre. Unfortunately, these games have been coming and going for the past few weeks. And it doesn't matter who the starting goalie is: the club is giving away goals by the ton at home.

– These two sequences sum up tonight's game for the Habs.

– Hehe.

– Victor Hedman left the game after the first period and didn't return afterwards. So the Habs faced a team with only five defensemen for 40 minutes… and got washed out anyway.

– On a slightly more positive note.

– What do you think?

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