This evening, the Canadiens faced the worst team in the league, the San Jose Sharks. It was a good opportunity for the Tricolore to find the path to victory after a streak of five losses.
Here are the lineups:
After exchanging a few chances in the first period, it was the home team that opened the scoring at 5:50 with a power play goal from rookie Macklin Celebrini, his 17th goal of the season on a beautiful pass from Tyler Toffoli.
It was actually Toffoli who caused the penalty to Juraj Slafkovsky that led to the Sharks’ goal.
The rest of the first period passed without incident. 1-0 San Jose, which dominated shots 11-7.
The Canadiens were much more convincing at the start of the second period. The visitors took advantage of a power play to get on the scoreboard just 52 seconds into the period when Cole Caufield scored his 26th goal. Nick Suzuki and Lane Hutson also got assists on the play.
The Tricolore then took the lead for the first time in the game when Alex Newhook scored his 10th of the season at 4:53, with assists from Alex Carrier and Kirby Dach.
The home team thought they had equalized, but the goal was disallowed after an NHL review. However, it was only a temporary setback as they tied the game a few minutes later when Collin Grif scored his first career goal at 14:51 on a pass from Barclay Goodrow.
The Canadiens got a four-minute power play just before the end of the second period.
It was 2-2 after two periods. However, the Tricolore only had 13 shots in total (compared to 20 for the Sharks).
The visitors took advantage of this power play to regain the lead thanks to Brendan Gallagher’s 12th goal. On the play, Dach and Newhook also collected their second point of the game.
Unfortunately, the Canadiens were unable to hold onto this lead as the Sharks also scored during a power play granted after Arber Xhekaj’s penalty when Toffoli tied the game at 3-3, assisted by Celebrini and Jake Walman.
The CH could have seen its chances slip away when Jayden Struble took a very bad penalty for delaying the game. Fortunately, Samuel Montembeault was alert and made two solid saves to maintain the tie.
Ultimately, it was Joel Armia who scored a shorthanded goal on a beautiful pass from Jake Evans to put the Canadiens back in front.
The Canadiens managed to hold onto this lead and thus find the path to victory after five consecutive losses.
