For the 20th time in 30 games, the Montreal Canadiens surrendered the first goal of a contest on Tuesday night. And, boy, did this one ever tell a story.
The Canadiens actually showed well in the first frame of what turned out to be a 5-2 road loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Montreal dinged three posts in the opening 20 minutes, but the only goal of the period came when Pittsburgh scored on a play that looked more like a pre-game warmup routine where the object of the activity is to keep the puck in the air as long as possible.
The sequence started with Kris Letang bombing a shot on Jake Allen from the point. The puck popped off Allen’s pads and looped toward the slot. Jeff Petry, returning to the lineup after a four-game absence thanks to an upper-body injury, reached out with one hand on his stick to try and swat it away, only to wind up knocking the puck out of mid-air toward Evan Rodrigues in the high slot. Rodrigues booted the puck toward the net like a soccer player sending a cross into the box, where Kapanen unleashed his inner baseball player and bunted the puck past Allen.
Apparently, hockey isn’t the only sport the Canadiens struggle with.
That series pretty much sums up how things have been going all season for Montreal, which extended its worst losing streak of the year to an unlucky seven games. In many ways, the Canadiens were full measure for their latest setback in what seems like an endless string of them. That said, there were actually a couple of bright spots worth highlighting.
Here are a few observations from a game that saw Letang notch his 600th career point against his hometown team, Sidney Crosby register a couple of assists, and the Habs ping a total of five goal posts.
Jo Knows Hockey
Jonathan Drouin’s nearly five-year tenure in Montreal has been filled with frustrations and challenges for both the player and club. But, on nights like this, you see why former GM Marc Bergevin went out and traded for the 2013 third overall pick.
Drouin was easily the Canadiens’ best skater, scoring the team’s first goal and drawing an assist on the second. His goal came about after a nice bit of forechecking by Laurent Dauphin, who picked up an errant pass by Penguins defenceman Mike Matheson and quickly hit Drouin in front of the net. Suddenly one-on-one with the red-hot Tristan Jarry, Drouin calmly sucked the puck to his backhand and whipped it past the goalie’s glove side.
Beyond the points, Drouin skated with confidence all night and looked dangerous every time he had the puck in the Penguins zone. From injuries to the anxiety that forced him to step away from the game last year, Drouin has faced so much adversity in the past couple years. He’s still just 26 years old, though, and if he can find a way to let that talent of his surface on a more consistent basis, he can be part of the solution in Montreal.
Bad Beginnings
While the Canadiens started well in the first, it was a different story in the opening minutes of the middle and final frames. Montreal was only down 1-0 after the first but managed to take two penalties before the second period was 80 seconds old. While Pittsburgh didn’t score on the extended 5-on-3 advantage, the Penguins did get a power-play marker during a second stanza that saw the Canadiens take four penalties.
Montreal went into the second intermission on a high after Jesse Ylönen scored with just three seconds left in the period. Instead of building on that, though, the good vibes disappeared 28 seconds into the third when Brian Dumoulin scored to restore Pittsburgh’s two-goal advantage and send the home side cruising toward two points.
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Save that Puck
Ylönen’s tally was one he won’t soon forget, as it marked the 22-year-old Finn’s first NHL goal in his third career game. It was a nice one, too, as Ylönen cocked his stick while standing a few feet beyond the top of the circle, hoping for a feed from Drouin. When the latter curled toward his forehand side and slid the puck back toward the blue, Ylönen dropped the hammer, slamming the puck past Jarry on the stick side and just inside the post.
With the Canadiens destined for a high pick in the 2022 NHL Draft — and likely another first-rounder after they trade Ben Chiarot — a lot will be made about the young players coming into the organization this summer. That said, so much of what will determine how long the Canadiens are down is how its current crop of prospects drafted in the past three or four years develop. Ylönen, a second-rounder in 2018, scored nine goals in 29 AHL games during his first season of North American pro hockey last year and had 14 points in 17 AHL contests before his callup this season.
It’s only one shot, but the right winger glimpsed the scoring potential Montreal has to work with him to maximize.
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