The Sharks win an exciting offensive battle against the Canadiens

Félix Forget
The Sharks win an exciting offensive battle against the Canadiens
Credit: DansLesCoulisses.com

Tonight, the Canadiens played the first game of their Western road trip, facing off against the Sharks in San Jose.

Martin St-Louis made no changes to his lineup for the occasion: the 18 skaters and starting goaltender were the same as on Saturday night.

Here's how it looked:

On the Sharks' side, all eyes were obviously on Macklin Celebrini, the club's young superstar.

Here is the home team's lineup, with Yaroslav Askarov in goal:

Yesterday, after the CH's practice, Martin St-Louis challenged his second line, stating that he wanted to see more from his trio of young players.

And in the first period, the guys got the message: Oliver Kapanen scored the first goal of the game.

But at the end of the period, the Sharks found a way to tie the score.

Celebrini and Will Smith set the stage for Collin Graf.

After 20 minutes, the score was 1-1.

In the second period, the CH regained the lead after a few minutes when Phillip Danault redirected a shot from Mike Matheson.

A strange goal, but what matters is the result.

But a few minutes later, the Sharks tied the score again. Michael Misa took advantage of the confusion in front of the net to bring the score to 2-2.

He, too, is one of the (very) talented young players in San Jose.

And at the very end of the period, the Sharks scored twice.

First, Macklin Celebrini completely outplayed the Habs to give his team the lead. He's really, really good.

Then, Kiefer Sherwood took advantage of Kirby Dach's softness to steal the puck and pass it to Alex Wennberg.

Two goals in 25 seconds for the Sharks.

After 40 minutes, the score was 4-2 in favor of the Sharks.

Early in the third period, the Sharks took advantage of a power play… and once again, Celebrini's brilliance hurt the Habs.

This time, he set up Will Smith, who scored his team's fifth goal.

Except that shortly thereafter, it was the CH who found themselves with a man advantage… and in turn, they took advantage of the talent of one of their young stars.

Ivan Demidov, who had been struggling for a while, scored a big goal.

And just 18 seconds later, it was Alex Newhook's turn to score.

Suddenly, the Habs were back in the game.

The Canadiens were awarded another power play a few minutes later… and once again, they took advantage of it to score. Newhook tied the game at 5-5.

At the end of the game, the Habs were assessed a nasty penalty for having too many players on the ice. That opened the door for the Sharks on the power play…

And Kiefer Sherwood took advantage of the opportunity to score his first goal in a Sharks uniform.

The Habs tried to force overtime at the end of the game when Jakub Dobes was pulled from the net. Adam Gaudette (who didn't make any friends in Montreal tonight) scored into an empty net… and Celebrini picked up his fourth point of the game on the play.

Final score: 7-5 San Jose

The Canadiens will be back in action on Friday night at 9 p.m. when they face the Ducks in Anaheim. The trade deadline will have passed by then.


Overtime

– Usually, the Habs' game in San Jose during the break is a pretty boring affair. But today was quite the opposite: we were treated to an offensive festival and a game that was intense from start to finish. It's clear that both clubs have acquired a ton of young talent in recent years.

There was some real animosity between the two clubs tonight. In the third period, for example, the Sharks players went after Jakub Dobes… and we saw some roughhousing after a number of whistles. There was some bad blood on both sides.

– Jakub Dobes suffered his first regulation loss since December 9 (12 starts) tonight. It (really) wasn't easy for him today.

– Alex Newhook has been playing very big hockey since his return. He looks a lot like the guy who was blossoming early in the season before his serious injury.

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