CANADIENS
Montreal

3-4

SENATORS
Ottawa

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Byron – Galchenyuk – Radulov
Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Danault – Mitchell – Shaw
Terry – Desharnais – Carr[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Markov – Petry
Beaulieu – Hanley
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

Charles Hudon, Greg Pateryn

Injured Reserve

Zach Redmond (foot), Artturi Lehkonen (upper body), Brian Flynn (upper body)

Game Report

With 61,004 fans waiting, not so patiently, at the Olympic Stadium, crews repainted the lines marking the penalty box prior to Game 1 of the MLS Eastern Conference final between the Montreal Impact and Toronto FC. To hurry the process a worker with a leaf-blower was on the scene to help dry the fresh paint. The folks had only miscalculated by about two metres.

Finally the match got underway about 45 minutes late.

Impact president Joey Saputo blamed traffic and late-arriving officials for the snafu. By Saputo’s explanation, one might assume that the field dimensions were kept in a locked box only to be revealed by officials just prior to game-time.

As ridiculous as all of that sounds, things across town at the Bell Centre were not making anymore sense than at the Big O.

The once-streaking Montreal Canadiens have been turned upside down by the tinkering coach. Expectations are unclear, players seem unfamiliar with the roles, chemistry is mostly non-existent and confidence is shattered.

With a few notable exceptions, the Habs are a mess at this point in the season.

Those exceptions were played a ton in this game. With the third pairing defense not contributing, partly due to injury, Andrei Markov and Shea Weber were both around the 30 minute mark.

Despite the additions to the roster by Marc Bergevin, the team is still coached by Michel Therrien. That means that Carey Price must carry his mates to victory. If Price can’t mount a superhuman effort, it’s unlikely that Therrien can facilitate the strategy and the adjustments necessary to deliver a win.

~~~

▲     Andrei Markov, Shea Weber, Alexander Radulov, Alex Galchenyuk

▼     David Desharnais, Joel Hanley

1.  Mike Hoffman  OTT
2.  Andrei Markov  MTL
3.  Craig Anderson  OTT

• “(Andrei) Markov played a hell of a game, (Shea) Weber the same thing.”
• “It’s a rivalry (with the Senators), there’s no doubt about that. We build rivalries in the playoffs.” 

Alex Galchenyuk

• “We lost the game. It doesn’t matter [what I did]. Obviously, there are some positives and some negatives that cost us the game. At the end of the day, it’s a loss. It doesn’t matter how many good things you did. You didn’t come up with the win.”
• “It’s a tough one, but we have a game really soon, so we’ve got to put this one behind us. Obviously, it’s going to suck for a little while, but we’ve got practice and a game the next day, so we’ve got to focus on that.”

Andrei Markov

• “We knew it was going to be a tight-checking game. I think we played a pretty good game. We got some opportunities on the power play, but we didn’t score enough.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Las Vegas Golden Knights#LVNHL

— John Shannon (@JShannonhl) November 23, 2016

Shea Weber on the PP!!! 8th of the season, 7th PP goal! #GoHabsGo @AllHabs

— Matt Smith (@Snakebite350) November 23, 2016

A sold out game at the Big O being delayed because the lines on the field weren't drawn properly is just about perfect Big O.

— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) November 23, 2016

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