• Canadiens earn much-needed win in Arizona
• Captain Max Pacioretty steps up with big night
• Montreal heads home on high note
The Montreal Canadiens needed a hero on Thursday night.
They had stumbled into Arizona after losing four consecutive games—the last of which was a 4-0 stinker at the hands of the bottom-of-the-barrel Colorado Avalanche.
The optics of a reported meeting between Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin and the team’s leadership group on Wednesday afternoon spelled out the obvious: dropping Thursday’s game to the 29th-placed Coyotes wasn’t an option.
He’s overcome a rough start to 2016-17 to prove he’s evolved into the leader the Canadiens need him to be, scoring 25 of his 27 goals over the last 42 games to keep his team in pole position of the Atlantic Division. Without Pacioretty’s contribution on Thursday, the Canadiens would be flying home to Montreal with their tails tucked between their legs. Their closest rivals in the standings, the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs, had picked up points in their respective games on Thursday. And the race tightening could’ve had a suffocating effect on the reeling Canadiens.
But their captain has allowed them to breathe easier knowing they’ve taken one small step back to where they want to be. ‘Small’ being the operative word.
Pacioretty scored 57 seconds into the game to break a 138-minute goalless streak for the Canadiens, and defenceman Andrei Markov extended the lead to 2-0 a little more than 12 minutes later.
Montreal was in cruise control, allowing just one shot to get to their net in the first 11 minutes of the second period before the wheels came off the bus. Forward Andrew Shaw took a questionable hooking penalty in the offensive zone in the 12th minute of the second frame, Phillip Danault and Paul Byron followed him to the box in two minutes that followed, and Arizona scored three goals in 2:21 to deliver a shocking blow to the Canadiens.
The way the third one was scored could’ve been a knockout punch.
It was a broken play that caught Canadiens goaltender Carey Price completely off-guard, leaving Coyotes defenceman Alex Goligoski a clean look at an empty net.
It stood to reason Price wouldn’t allow a worse one in the game, but sometimes reason goes to the wind.
After Pacioretty tied the game 2:52 into the third period, after he set up Alexander Radulov with the go-ahead goal at the 9:56 mark, Price lost total focus to allow the Coyotes back into the game.
The puck was dribbling its way toward the Montreal goalkeeper, he hesitated to make a play on it, and Arizona’s Christian Dvorak came swooping in and checked it off his stick. It dropped through Price’s legs, he reacted in slow motion and helplessly swung his stick behind him before whiffing on his attempt to stop it from going into net.
The score was 4-4 with just under five minutes remaining in the third period.
But it was at the start of overtime that Pacioretty once again took the reins. He stormed in on Mike Smith’s net to record the first shot of the extra frame, he cycled his way back into the offensive zone after the puck was cleared and fired another. Then he jumped onto the bench to catch his breath.
A minute later Pacioretty was right back on the ice. He broke through coverage, pivoted, deferred to Alex Galchenyuk and flashed in front of Smith to set the screen on the game-winning goal. The play emphatically stamped Pacioretty’s leadership in the game.
"There’s nothing for people to worry or panic about," he said on Thursday morning.
When Pacioretty was asked about the significance of Wednesday’s meeting with Bergevin, he played it off as business as usual.
"I speak to Berge every day, so yesterday was no different," Pacioretty said. "We talk all the time, it just happens that we had a day off and weren’t able to do so at the rink.
"We’re all on the same page in this room and we have been all year, and we’ll have each other’s back when stuff like this comes out."
Proving it on Thursday was essential.
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