MONTREAL—The Montreal Canadiens got their first taste of three-on-three overtime, and it was a bitter one.
Captain Max Pacioretty had the puck deep in Ottawa’s territory. He made a bank-pass back to Jeff Petry, but Senators forward Mike Hoffman intercepted and pushed a two-on-one the other way, setting up Kyle Turris with an easy goal.
All of those events transpired in 34 seconds, and with that, the Canadiens lost their first game on home ice this season.
Here are five lessons we took away from the game.
Pacioretty snakebitten
Pacioretty has had seasons of 33, 37 and 39 goals, so it’s notable he came into Tuesday’s game having recorded the best start of his career with seven goals in Montreal’s first 13 games.
But giving away the puck on the game-winning goal only confounded what was a frustrating situation for Pacioretty, who failed to record a goal for a fifth-straight game.
Pacioretty had four shots on net, none better than the one in the third period—a quick one-timer from the high slot—with the score at 1-1.
“I was kinda sliding to my right and he just got a quick shot off, and I was able to have my right leg down and just swung my left leg around to kick it out,” said goaltender Craig Anderson.
Pacioretty’s longest goal drought last season was five games (Dec. 12-23).
The Canadiens play the New York Islanders Thursday. Pacioretty has 10 goals in 19 career games against them.
Anderson brilliant
The Senators were outshot in all three periods of Tuesday’s game and they were out-chanced by a wide margin, but Craig Anderson was “real good, real steady; the way we expected, the way we’ve seen him play lots” according to coach Dave Cameron.
He was better than “real good.” He made 36 saves, and for as great as the one on Pacioretty was, he made a better one on Brendan Gallagher from right inside the crease to help the Senators kill a penalty with less than four minutes remaining in the game.
“Gallagher, he’s good around the net,” said Anderson. “We’ve seen lots of goals where the puck hits the goalie, it’s in the air and he bats it out of the air and into the net. For me it was just good tracking the puck and following it and finding it and fighting for it to make sure I got to it before he did.”
Anderson joked afterwards he felt so good that he could play six more periods.
Can’t ask more of Mike Condon
He won his first four NHL starts and notched a point in the standings for the Canadiens in his fifth.
In the first period Condon went more than 10 minutes between Ottawa’s first and second shot and came up with a very confident save on defenceman Cody Ceci.
He was beat on a breakaway by Jean-Gabriel Pageau (we’ll get to that in a moment) in the second period and made 25 saves total before Turris buried the game on an unstoppable shot.
“No one likes losing,” said Condon. “It was a hard-fought game. I thought Craig Anderson played a really good game. We took it to him in the third and that’s the way it goes sometimes. They made a nice play in overtime, and we’ll just take a point.”
Pageau, Pageau Pageau Pageau, Pageau, Pageau
The kid has scored 22 NHL goals between the regular season and the Stanley Cup playoffs; seven of them, including the one he scored Tuesday, have come against the Canadiens.
What’s the key to Pageau’s success against Montreal?
“I don’t try to change anything in my game, I just try to bring the same game every night,” said Pageau. “Maybe I have a little boost of energy because I have a lot of friends that are Habs fans, and they always text me before the game.”
Note to Canadiens fans who are friends with Pageau: might want to stop doing that…
Tic-Tac-Weise scores his seventh goal of the season
The Canadiens were 1-3 on the power play against Ottawa and scored their nicest goal with the man-advantage this season.
Weise had a career-high 10 goals in 79 games last season. Safe to say he’s going to shatter that total this year.
Montreal is now 12-50 on the power play, good for fourth in the NHL (24 per cent). Last season they were a paltry 40-280, ranking 23rd (16.5 per cent).
What’s the difference, aside from J.J Daigneault taking over from Dan Lacroix and Craig Ramsay consulting?
“Better puck control, getting to the net more frequently and much more aggressively,” said Canadiens coach Michel Therrien. “We’re controlling the puck better in the restricted areas of the ice, so I believe that’s very different. It’s leading to the results we’re having.”
