The CH wins in a shootout and moves into first place in the Atlantic Division

Félix Forget
The CH wins in a shootout and moves into first place in the Atlantic Division
Credit: DansLesCoulisses.com

After seeing their winning streak come to an end on Sunday night, the Canadiens were back in action tonight as they hosted the Panthers at the Bell Centre.

For the game, the Habs' lineup saw some significant changes: Kirby Dach, Alexandre Texier, and Adam Engström were in the lineup, while Brendan Gallagher, Joe Veleno, and Kaiden Guhle were out.

It was also noted that Oliver Kapanen was playing on the wing of the fourth line.

On the visitors' side, the Panthers arrived at the Bell Centre in a severely depleted state. The vast majority of the team's big names were not in uniform tonight.

Here's what it looked like:

That said, it didn't stop the Panthers from taking the lead in the first period. A generous pass and some porous defensive coverage allowed Carter Verhaeghe to open the scoring.

It happened while the Panthers were in control of the game.

After 20 minutes, the Panthers led 1-0.

Early in the second period, the Habs found themselves on the power play. And after a few rough shifts, the power play unit came alive.

A beautiful pass from Cole Caufield allowed Ivan Demidov to tie the game.

That said, later in the period, Cole Reinhardt found a way to beat Arber Xhekaj.

He then got lucky when his “shot,” which was off-target, deflected off Jakub Dobes and found its way into the Habs' net.

After 40 minutes, the score was 2-1 in favor of the Panthers.

In the third period, the Habs continued to struggle to generate offense… but they took advantage of a delayed penalty to establish themselves in the Panthers' zone.

Phillip Danault took advantage to score his first goal in 15 games… and Adam Engström picked up his first career point on the play.

But just over a minute later, the Panthers regained the lead thanks to Eetu Luostarinen.

Luostarinen deflected Gustav Forsling's shot into the Habs' net.

The Habs pushed hard late in the third period… and it paid off: a completely wild play by Lane Hutson set up Nick Suzuki for the tying goal.

These two are used to joining forces late in the game against the Panthers.

So it took overtime to decide the game.

The Habs spent the first few minutes of overtime on the power play, but were unable to score. So we played 3-on-3 after that… and despite some great chances, no goals were scored.

So we went to a shootout.

Cole Caufield scored first, then Eetu Luostarinen was denied.

Alexandre Texier also scored shortly after, and Jakub Dobes stopped Sam Bennett's shot.

The Habs won after just two rounds of the shootout.

Final score: 4-3 Montreal (SO)

The Canadiens will be back in action Thursday night when the Lightning visit the Bell Centre. It will be a crucial game for both teams.


Overtime

– While the Sabres did not play tonight, the Lightning suffered a loss to the Senators. All three teams now have 102 points after 78 games played… but the Habs sit in third place due to tiebreakers. That said, with the standings this tight, everything is still up for grabs.

– Ivan Demidov really had a great game tonight. We saw him create opportunities and be the most dangerous forward on the Canadiens, which is starting to become an increasingly common observation. The only thing he still needs to work on is his choice of words during interviews, hehe.

– For the third straight game, Cole Caufield was unable to score his 50th goal of the season. He still managed to make his mark by setting up Demidov's goal in the second period and scoring a big goal in the shootout.

– Late in the first period, Kirby Dach had to head back to the locker room after being hit (and cut) in the face by Arber Xhekaj's stick. He was, however, able to return for the start of the second period.

– It's interesting to note that all 12 forwards had roughly the same amount of ice time before the big guns were overused late in the game. Is the team's priority to win the Atlantic Division or to rest its players ahead of the playoffs?

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