It wasn’t as if the Montreal Canadiens put in a bad effort in what turned out to be a 2-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday.
The Canadiens had 44 shots on net. They had enough scoring chances to score at least three goals. But they were held to none for an NHL-worst eighth time this season.
The Avalanche found a way to squeeze out the win largely due to some exceptional penalty-killing, some great goaltending from Semyon Varlamov and a couple of lucky breaks. It was their 10th straight win on home ice, which set a new franchise record and more importantly kept them within two points of the Western Conference’s final playoff spot.
Here are some takeaways from the game.
Niemi gave the Canadiens a chance
We had referenced goaltender Antti Niemi’s revival earlier in the day, in this column about Charlie Lindgren.
Niemi had come to Montreal after putting up some of the worst numbers in modern goaltending history in stints with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Florida Panthers earlier this season, but a bit of work with goaltending coach Stephane Waite and some good, consistent practice has allowed him to redeem what looked like a lost career at the time the Canadiens claimed him on waivers back in November.
He came into Wednesday’s game with a 2.47 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage in six appearances with Montreal, and was outstanding in stopping 23 of Colorado’s 25 shots.
Niemi’s best sequence of the night: two key saves during a second-period two-minute fire drill for the Canadiens in front of him, which featured the Avalanche cycling through the offensive zone like a Class 5 hurricane.
A wraparound goal from Carl Soderberg at the 15:55 mark of that frame fooled Niemi, and it wasn’t until there was 3:02 remaining in the game that Alexander Kerfoot snuck one right through him.
He deserved a better fate in this one.
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Alex Galchenyuk deserved better, too…
The Canadiens forward has hit his stride of late, and he came to Colorado with his confidence in a place that would continue to inspire the type of play that had coach Claude Julien impressed before the team departed for this four-game road trip on Monday.
"I think there’s a lot of improvement in his game," Julien said earlier this week. "I’m seeing a guy who’s really putting an effort to be a little bit more complete. We don’t want him to stop creating scoring chances, scoring goals. The offensive part of his game is actually pretty good. Because you don’t play with the puck that much in the game, you just want him to continue to work hard in playing without the puck and sometimes about reloading, sometimes about forechecking. It’s about different things and he’s doing a better job of that.
“I like his attitude, I like his will to want to get better and he is doing that. So I have no complaints at all. If anything, I have a lot of praise for him right now in the direction he’s going."
Galchenyuk was Montreal’s most dangerous player in Wednesday’s game, with five shots on net and two misses that counted as quality scoring chances.
What you have to like if you’re a Canadiens fan — we know Julien will love it — is that three of those shots came through Galchenyuk’s work without the puck. He kept his feet moving, read the plays beautifully and intercepted Colorado passes to create his team’s best scoring chances in the game.
A bounce here or there and Galchenyuk might have won this one for the Canadiens on his own. The good news is, what he’s doing is a considerable improvement from what we saw from him earlier in the season — when he couldn’t quite find the measures to put his overwhelming talent to good use.
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Colorado’s penalty kill stole the show
The Avalanche have the third-best penalty-killing group in the NHL and it did a masterful job against the Canadiens Wednesday.
Colorado’s best work of the night: Killing off a 40-second 5-on-3 advantage for the Canadiens just three minutes into the third period, when they were only up 1-0 in the game.
Montreal had its top unit on for the first 1:20 of Mikko Rantanen’s penalty before Soderberg shot the puck into the crowd. We were a bit surprised Julien didn’t call a timeout to give his best players a rest and try to set up a play — after his team’s first two power plays of the game played directly into Colorado’s scouting report.
But Julien didn’t do that, and the Canadiens didn’t adjust. They were held to just one shot on net during those key moments of the game, and the Avalanche deserve just as much credit for that.
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A change that didn’t work
Julien had reunited Charles Hudon with early-season linemates Tomas Plekanec and Brendan Gallagher and shifted Artturi Lehkonen to a line with Max Pacioretty and Paul Byron for this game.
It looked like a good move when Byron’s unit came flying out of the gate, but didn’t prove to be one by game’s end.
Since Byron moved to centre after Phillip Danault was injured against the Boston Bruins on Jan. 13, Hudon had been taking the majority of the faceoffs on the line with him and Pacioretty. Left to his own devices against Colorado, Byron won just four of 10 faceoffs he took in the game.
Lehkonen came into Wednesday’s action on a three-game scoring streak (three goals and two assists) after failing to score more than six points in his first 36 games of the season. He had finally gotten hot with Gallagher and Plekanec. It didn’t seem like an opportune time to move him, but we’re inclined to suggest it happened to spark Byron and Pacioretty.
Byron hadn’t scored in nine games coming in; Pacioretty hadn’t scored in six. And unfortunately for them, Julien, Lehkonen, Hudon and the rest of the Canadiens, none of that changed on Wednesday.
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