MONTREAL — Johnny Gaudreau slipped by defenceman Nathan Beaulieu and found himself all alone in front of Carey Price. He faked once and thought he’d outsmart the Montreal Canadiens’ netminder. Thought he’d out-wait him, too.
He was wrong.
Gaudreau’s shot was the second of Tuesday’s game and it was among the more threatening of the 30 Price stopped en route to helping the Canadiens to a 5-1 win over a dispirited Calgary Flames team that dropped the sixth of its last seven contests.
Price was 1.1 seconds from recording the third shutout of his season when Sam Bennett slipped one through on the power play.
But that didn’t detract from a statement game for Price, delivered in the face of mounting concern over his recent performances.
“We have full confidence in [Price],” said Beaulieu. “That’s the last guy in this city I think anyone is going to be worried about.”
But that’s just the thing: some have been anxious about Price allowing at least three goals in nine of his last 11 games and losing five of his last six starts leading into Tuesday’s action.
“I’ve never been a big statistics guy,” said Price.
That’s why it came as a surprise to him that his pass to Torrey Mitchell, who set up Daniel Carr for Montreal’s fourth goal on the night, was his first assist of the season.
“It wasn’t the prettiest assist but I’ll take it,” he said.
It punctuated the type of performance we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from him, the type of performance that earned him the opportunity to represent the Canadiens at the NHL all-star game this weekend as captain of the Atlantic Division.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t get him the shutout,” said Paul Byron.
Alexander Radulov, who recorded his first two-goal game as a Canadiens skater in this one, was particularly disappointed about it—considering he was at fault for hooking down Bennett with 53 seconds remaining in the game.
But Price, who was his calm, collected self, shrugged his shoulders and said it didn’t bother him.
It’s that attitude, which he’s maintained over the last three weeks—and seemingly over the last four years of his career—that’s likely at the root of why he’s rebounding.
One could see Tuesday’s goaltending performance coming, especially after a 35-save overtime loss to the Sabres on Saturday.
Price could see it coming too.
“I’m definitely feeling more comfortable,” he said.
Not that Calgary made it easy on Price, outshooting Montreal 22-13 through two periods, out-chancing them handily too. He made blocker saves on Sean Monahan, Mikael Backlund, and Mark Giordano, and saved his best one of the night for a 2-on-1 chance via Michael Frolik, which came with a little less than six minutes remaining in the third period.
Price just held his ground and swallowed Frolik’s shot.
The gap between the Flames’ offensive thrust and their defensive focus proved to be too big to close.
“We were pathetic,” said Flames coach Glen Gulutzan. “It was a pathetic display. No bite back, no kick back, accept it. Right down, our top guys didn’t do anything.”
Calgary had come to Montreal downtrodden, fresh off a 4-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday.
It was understandable that Gulutzan took exception to the way his team allowed the Canadiens to score on two of four power plays, gave up a shorthanded goal, and came up shot-less on a 47-second five-on-three advantage.
The air wheezed out of Calgary’s balloon with every opportunity turned away by Price. When Andrew Shaw opened the scoring on his team’s sixth shot of the first period, making it the ninth straight game that the Flames have surrendered the first goal, the collective sag on the visitors’ bench was palpable.
“I mean, we play well, one bad thing happens, we crumple,” said Gulutzan. “Everybody talks about our starts. Our starts have been good. One little shot, it goes in, we crumple. We just crumple. We have no resolve to stay with it. We’ve gotta look internally at ourselves here, everybody, everybody in the organization, and figure out how we’re going to pull ourselves out…”
Maybe the Flames can take a page out of Price’s book, take a breather, and remind themselves that they have plenty of time remaining to find a solution. They still hold on to the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Montreal goaltender seems to have found his solution. It was apparent from the second he turned aside Gaudreau’s first-period shot.
