The Montreal Canadiens had a tall order tonight: get back on the road with a win by beating the near-perfect New York Rangers. Fortunately, there was extra help on hand, players from their many championship teams from the 1970s. Of course, the legends couldn’t take the ice, but it was still hoped that their presence would be an inspiration. Before the match, the former players were made available to the media.

Decorated goaltender Ken Dryden was asked what he thought of this year’s team and he said:

This team knows where it’s going and is starting to move in that direction. Some of the special players are showing that they are special and when you look at Martin St-Louis, it looks like he is going to be one of those special people too. His interview he did after Patrik Laine’s injury, it was fantastic, the way he spoke, he understands, he knows his job here and everyone’s job here is to be special, it’s not good, it isn’t that great, it has to be special. That’s the standard, that’s what you have in mind.

Unfortunately, Rangers were unimpressed and were ruthless, taking advantage of every mistake. The Habs started well with a threatening first shift that almost saw Lane Hutson score, but when the game went the other way less than a minute later, Mika Zibanejad took full advantage of poor defensive coverage to beat Samuel Montembeault with one timer in acres of space to give New York a 1-0 lead. Coach Martin St-Louis said the following about the start of the match:

It was a funny first one, if you look at the first service, until the end of that service it was a good service for us. Zibanejad comes off the bench, beats us on a substitution, comes in late and Lane was in the action, in the offensive zone, almost making the play. It’s hard for a defender to think about the second wave returning to your zone. As a defender you go back to the net. It was a good transition and it ended badly.

A minute and a few seconds later, Montembeault thought a cherry was going to be called, he signaled, Logan Mailloux stopped playing and before Homer Simpson shouted “D’OH!” it became 2-0. There is clearly a lesson to be learned from this: you play until the whistle, but at the end of the action you sometimes react in a different way.

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After four minutes of fairly flawless hockey, Lane Hutson tried to get around Reilly Smith, who reminded him that he’s an NHLer, grabbed his pocket and made it 3-0 to the Rangers. As the coach said in his post-game, it’s hard to win a game when you’re down three before the first TV timeout.

After Josh Anderson was sent to the box for cross-checking, Filip Chytil beat Justin Barron’s cover to make it 4-0 on the power play and send Montembeault to an early shower. Needless to say, a fully pumped Bell Center after the opening ceremony was subdued to say the least.

Still, some players kept trying. Jake Evans, who never runs out of steam or works tirelessly at high tide, had 2 shots, 2 hits, a foul penalty and won 60% of his faceoffs in that first frame.

Related: Canadiens Unsung Faceoff Hero

Anderson, fresh from the penalty area, fought purposefully behind Igor Shesterkin’s net and was spotted by captain Nick Suzuki who changed course to head for the front of the net instead of switching, and he managed to cut the lead by one reduce with his first goal. of the year.

St-Louis didn’t punish its young defenders, even with the juicy turnovers. Hutson saw more than seven minutes of action in the first and was immediately back on the ice for the start of the second frame alongside Mailloux.

Brendan Gallagher was awarded a penalty when he forced Adam Fox to hook him as he headed in all alone at Shesterkin five minutes into the second frame, waking up the Bell Center crowd. With Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Mike Matheson and Alex Newhook leading the way, the Habs managed to cut the visitors’ lead to two thanks to a fantastic effort from the captain who scored his second of the night and the season.

However, the Rangers were still hungry and less than four minutes later, Braden Schneider took advantage of Primeau’s glove to score high and give New York a 5–2 lead.

Unfortunately, much of the second frame was spent wondering how Rangers didn’t extend their lead even further, it pains me to say, but Primeau has trust issues and when something goes wrong he can’t seem to put it behind him . and move on. There were several times tonight where he lost sight of the puck and it miraculously stayed in the blue paint until recovered by a friendly stick.

After 40 minutes the visitors had a 25-18 advantage in shots, without the many posts they had scored up to that point. It’s honestly hard not to be impressed with the visitors’ passing game, their offense really is a very well oiled machine that St-Louis called a “circus offense” and a machine full of picks that I thought was quite a was an accurate description.

Things went from bad to worse in the third period, the Canadiens kept trying and Evans drew a penalty, but the power play couldn’t be converted. Somewhat frustrated, Brendan Gallagher had a bit of an altercation with Jacob Trouba after the whistle when Chris Kreider jumped on Gallagher and both were sent into the penalty area, allowing Trouba to roam the ice freely.

Unfortunately for Justin Barron, he took full advantage of his freedom by backing into the Canadiens defenseman with a shoulder strike to the head that went unpunished by the officials, at least since Matheson jumped on him. Naturally, the alternate captain was given 5 minutes for fighting, 2 minutes for instigating and 10 minutes for misconduct, which made the injury even worse. Then the Rangers added two more goals to skate away with a 7-2 victory.

Evans, who has been on the receiving end of more than his fair share of hits to the head, said the following after the match:

I hate seeing that, I didn’t like the hit… yeah, I hate seeing it and I hope JB can recover quickly and it’s not that bad, we’re just thinking about him. We have a very close group here, that’s one thing that’s going well (…) No one on the bench liked the goal and for him to go one step further says a lot about how close we are and how good a teammate he is is (Matheson).

The Canadiens will have plenty of time to lick their wounds as the next game is on Saturday and tomorrow’s practice is scheduled later than usual in Brossard at 11:30 a.m.

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