CANADIENS
Montreal

2-3

PREDATORS
Nashville

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Byron – Hudon
Galchenyuk – Drouin – Scherbak
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Gallagher
Deslauriers – Froese – L. Shaw
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Alzner – Petry
Mete – Schlemko
Morrow – Benn
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Jacob De La Rose, Daniel Carr, Jakub Jerabek

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body, Phillip Danault – concussion, Andrew Shaw – lower-body

Game Report by Chris G

The game started with P.K. chants from the crowd at the Bell Centre. His teammate Alexei Emelin also received a nice ovation during the first TV timeout. The former Habs players drew some attention as there seemed to be animosity between Subban and Brendan Gallagher, and Alexei Emelin with a knee to knee hit on Nikita Sherbak that lead to a Canadiens power play. The Canadiens most dangerous scoring opportunity was during a power play when Max Pacioretty passed the puck to a wide open Alex Galchenuk, which Pekka Rinne stopped with his glove after having to move from right to left.

The Subban – Gallagher feud continued into the second period. Gallagher left the bench to get his right eye stitched after missing a body check against Subban behind the Predators goal. When he returned to play, Gallagher scored his 20th goal of the season after his first shot attempt was blocked by Subban. Arrturi Lehkonen created the scoring opportunity after stripping the puck away from Filip Forsberg. Later in the period, the Predators tied the game as David Schlemko let Scott Hartnell wide open in front of the net and Hartnell just had to tap the puck into the wide open net after a bouncing pack ended up on his stick.

Kevin Fiala was able to score at the 12 minute mark of the third period, by lifting a puck over Price who was on the ice following a nice save on Ryan Johansen.  Charles Hudon lost a defensive zone face-off following an icing that led to that goal. With the Habs goalie pulled, Jonathan Drouin scored his eight goal of the season with an accurate shot on the blocker side with 1:14 remaining in the period. That was Drouin’s first goal in seven games.

The Predators survived the 3-on-3 overtime as Rinne had to make 10 saves to send the game to shootout. Paul Byron, Jonathan Drouin and Max Pacioretty weren’t able to score in the shootout. Ryan Ellis scored on Carey Price and that was enough to allow his team to win the game.

The Canadiens head on the road for a four game trip starting with the Colorado Avalanche on Valentine’s Day.

===

▲  Nikita Scherbak, Brendan Gallagher, Logan Shaw, Nicolas Deslauriers, Artturi Lehkonen, Byron Froese, Carey Price, Alex Galchenyuk, Jeff Petry, Victor Mete

▼  David Schlemko, Max Pacioretty, Charles Hudon, Paul Byron

1. Ryan Ellis  NSH
2. Pekka Rinne  NSH
3. Brendan Gallagher  MTL

• “All I can say is we deserved a better result. I think we deserved to win that game. We did everything, and tonight there were two good goalies, and that kept the game tight. But I have nothing negative to say about my team, because from start to finish, we played a solid game. We did everything we could to win, and we should have won.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “It’s just battling hard. [P.K. Subban] was talking, doing what he does. But I don’t know why we’re talking about him. That’s kind of what he wants. He came in here and tried to make it about P.K. Subban, which is what he does. We’re going to focus on our team.”
• “I don’t know why you’re asking about him. I think [P.K. Subban] was…you know, they’ve got a lot of good players. I don’t know, what was he? Minus-1 in the game? They have a lot of other reasons why we lost tonight. They’re a good team. Great goalie, couple of guys on the back end, Ekholm, Josi, are probably elite players, and a lot of guys up front that can hurt you.”
• “Like I said, I don’t know why we’re talking about [P.K. Subban.] That’s what he wants. You can let him talk about himself all night. I’m sure he’ll give you guys enough lines. I’m not going to help that out.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Patience with Scherbak and Galchenyuk will pay off. Both are playing more of a 200 ft game. Means that ice time will go up. Play in all situations if they continue to grow.

— Jim Sneddon (@snedjd) February 11, 2018

#Habs 31 & 27 visited Emelin, Weber and Subban outside #Preds room after the game. Subban: “I miss those two guys, Pricey and Chucky, and guys that I keep in touch with pretty regularly since I’ve been (in Nashville) and I’m happy they came over to see me.”

— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNWpg) February 11, 2018

https://twitter.com/CaitlynGolem/status/962491604584972288

Follow @AllHabs on Twitter