The Montreal Canadiens aren’t leaving Western Canada with empty pockets.
Their bottom six forwards and third-pairing defenceman Nathan Beaulieu delivered two points Friday, combining for all of their goals in a 6-2 win over a Calgary Flames team that now finds itself in dire straits.
The Flames, who chased down 10 third-period deficits for wins in 2014-15, have trailed going into the third period in 10 of their 11 games this season. On Friday, they weren’t able to rekindle last year’s magic to erase a two-goal deficit in the third period against Montreal.
It was Montreal’s first regulation win in Calgary since 2002. Here are five takeaways from it.
Dale Weise on fire
Weise had a goal on his stick in Edmonton. Had he buried it, it would’ve likely secured the Canadiens a point in their stunning loss to the Oilers Thursday.
How did he respond? He scored his first NHL hat trick a night later in Calgary.
Weise’s first goal banked off Flames defenceman Kris Russell. His second was the game-winner in the second period; a perfect wrist shot from 30 feet out. And his third was a gift from Tomas Fleischmann.
But it doesn’t really matter how Weise scores them; it matters that he does score them.
A season ago, Weise set a career-high 10 goals in 79 games. He now has six goals in 12 games.
The man who couldn’t get a sniff in Vancouver (and New York) under John Tortorella has been an integral part of the Canadiens since coming over in a trade for defenceman Raphael Diaz, in 2014.
No one expects Weise is going to continue to score on 20 per cent of his shots. That would be ludicrous. But he’s earned his keep, and to deny it—as many Canadiens fans do on regular basis—is foolish.
Paul Byron redeemed
He was waived by the Flames and picked up by the Canadiens on the final day of this year’s training camp.
General manager Marc Bergevin and coach Michel Therrien suggested Byron’s speed would be a good fit with Montreal, but many snickered about his 5-foot-7, 150-pound frame filling a fourth line role.
In reality, Bergevin and Therrien weren’t interested in forcing prospect Jacob De La Rose to the sidelines when he could be playing regularly with their AHL affiliate.
The general manager and the coach weren’t going to lose sleep about relegating Byron, who came over with 137 games of NHL experience, to a periphery role.
Byron waited 10 games to get into the lineup, and no one said a word about a young player being deprived of an opportunity to gain confidence.
Against his old team, Byron played 14:35, set up Devante Smith-Pelly for his first goal of the season, and scored on his only shot of the game—a shorthanded breakaway for Montreal’s fifth goal.
“He plays today’s hockey,” said Therrien after the game, lauding Byron’s speed before guaranteeing he will remain in their lineup.
Hartley on the hot seat
The Flames could smell blood.
Against a Montreal team that had surrendered four unanswered goals in an ugly loss to Edmonton Thursday, a team playing their third game in four nights, a team obviously down on itself; the Flames came out hard.
They registered 15 shots in the first period—many of them quality—but goaltender Joni Ortio let them down on Weise’s first goal.
The Flames were resolved in the second.
They found the back of the net 27 seconds into the frame, but coughed up a lead just over two minutes later. Determined to not let it affect them, they continued to push forward, and Josh Jooris tied the game on a great second effort.
But Calgary’s fragility was all-too-apparent when Weise scored unassisted and unimpeded with 12:03 left in the second. Smith-Pelly added insult to injury roughly five minutes later, and the Flames called it quits in the third period.
Coach Bob Hartley, the reigning Jack Adams Trophy winner, has plenty of reason to believe his job in Calgary might now be in jeopardy.
Low scoring Habs are scoring like mad
With 221 goals, the Canadiens had the 18th-ranked offence in the NHL last season.
Through 12 games this season, they’ve scored 45 goals. Only the Boston Bruins (36 goals in nine games) have a better average than the Canadiens (3.75 goals per game).
With the exception of Montreal’s 5-1 loss to Vanouver earlier this week, the Canadiens have scored three or more goals in all of their games.
Every one of their forwards has gotten in on the act, and the only defencemen who haven’t are Tom Gilbert and Alexei Emelin (who have played in every one of their games) and Greg Pateryn and Jarred Tinordi (who have played in none of them).
Mike Condon has been perfect
Condon continues to author one of the NHL’s most romantic stories thus far.
The guy who never played in a starting role at any level; who considered quitting competitive hockey after earning his political science undergraduate diploma from Princeton; who fought his way up from the ECHL to the AHL to seizing the backup role from Dustin Tokarski at this year’s training camp… that guy has won all three of his NHL starts.
Condon’s numbers: .944 save percentage, 1.67 goals against average.
