Habs News: NHL, Montreal Canadiens, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Josh Anderson, Laval Rocket, Trois-Rivieres Lions
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — The Montreal Canadiens returned on home ice on Saturday after their recent four game road trip and hosted the Vegas Golden Knights. The score was tied through the first 44 minutes, before the Golden Knights exploded with three goals in 3:50, allowing them to head to 6-4 victory.
“I really liked our start. Everything we talked about was was happening and we were executing. In the second period got away from us pretty early. As good as we were executing in the first we weren’t executing in the second,” coach Martin St. Louis said.
“We obviously had a good start in the third period and we weren’t able to kill that penalty that gave them the lead and the game just kind of started slipping away from us. I felt we fought and we got a chance at the end to pull the goalie and see what could happen, but we just fell short.”
Nick Suzuki felt that Vegas did not give them a lot of room to generate offence. “They’re good big strong forechecking team, very organized breaking out of their end. I think we just had trouble staying on top of them and our forecheck wasn’t doing enough to stop their breakouts. I think we dug ourselves too big of a hole.”
Dynamic Duo
Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield have been Montreal’s top producers since the start of the season. They each added two points to their totals against Vegas. Suzuki’s two goals extended his goal scoring streak to four games.
#Habs Nick Suzuki finishes a 3-on-1 for goal vs #GoldenKnights
Assists: Dach@AllHabs @RocketSports #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/lL5JUQvuDd
— Chris G (@ChrisHabs360) November 6, 2022
The duo has scored 16 of the team’s 34 goals (47%) this year. Twelve of the 16 have been even strength goals. No one was surprised when Suzuki and Caufield were announced as the Molson Cup recipients for October.
Suzuki takes it as the top line’s responsibility to produce offensively. St. Louis said that the lack of consistency on the remaining lines contributed to the lack of secondary scoring. The coach added that there will be less movement on the other lines to allow chemistry to be built between linemates.
Dach Increased Role
After auditioning Josh Anderson, Sean Monahan and Mike Hoffman, Kirby Dach is now getting the chance to play to the right of Suzuki and Caufield. Dach is taking full advantage of the opportunity. Since being reunited in St. Louis, the trio has amassed nine of the squad’s 14 goals.
“Nick and I like to score, obviously Nick has a few more than I do. I think we just click well together and we got to keep that chemistry going and tidy up a few things on the defensive side and hopefully our line can stay together and keep producing,” Dach said.
“He’s dynamic up front and he has a lot of speed in size. He creates space and it’s nice to have,” Caufield described Dach.
“[Dach] a good play maker. He’s able to advance the play and pass the puck to the area where it’s supposed to go,” the coach added about Dach. “Kirby is able to see where the best play is.”
#Habs Kirby Dach sets up Cole Caufield for goal vs #GoldenKnights
Assists: Dach, Edmundson@AllHabs @RocketSports #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/0Gjvuv8ZzS
— Chris G (@ChrisHabs360) November 5, 2022
When the forward was acquired from the Blackhawks, general manager Kent Hughes was hoping that Dach would fill the role of second centre. The plan was not working as expected up to this point. Chicago moved him to the wing as he was struggling at the faceoff circle, averaging below 40 percent through three seasons. There has not been improvement in that category in Montreal with an average of 37.5 percent.
If Dach permanently moves to the wing, Hughes will return to the drawing board for a second line centre.
Anderson Suspended
The National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced on Sunday that Josh Anderson is suspended two games for boarding Alex Pietrangelo. The incident took place at 10:08 mark of Saturday’s game. Anderson received a boarding major and a game misconduct for the hit.
“It happens fast. It’s easy to look at it in slow motion and press pause to analyze it. The game is really quick and incidents like this happen. We will see what happens,” St. Louis answered when asked to comment following the game.
Rocket Can’t Win
The Laval Rocket finished their six-game homestand with two losses over the weekend. On Friday, forward Xavier Simoneau tied the score with 34 seconds remaining in regulation. Former Canadien Logan Shaw gave the Toronto Marlies the 5-4 victory in overtime with a power play goal.
“I think we deserved a little bit better. I think our guys are working hard. We showed a lot of emotion and character by coming back. It’s hard to take to lose like that. I feel bad for the players because they’re putting forth the effort and everyone is competing and nobody likes to lose,” coach Jean-Francois Houle said.
Overtime was also needed on Saturday when the Lehigh Valley Phantoms rolled into Place Bell. For a second consecutive game, Laval took a penalty in overtime and the opponents capitalized as the Phantoms went on to 3-2 victory.
“I didn’t like the way we came out. We were slow and soft. It was a little bit better in the second and third, but we can’t start a game that way and expect to win. We lost the game in the first period,” Houle said.
Laval recorded one win in the six games in front of their fans during their homestand. The Montreal Canadiens development team will run practice on Tuesday at Place Bell. There will be one more practice on Wednesday before the team travels on Thursday to Utica to begin a sequence of three games in three days in three cities.
Lions Split Series
The Trois-Rivieres Lions played a two-game series against the Adirondack Thunder over the weekend at Colisee Videotron. Coach Eric Belanger was behind the bench on Friday after being away from the team after testing positive for COVID. Forwards Riley Mckay and Brett Stapley tested positive during the week and missed both games against the Thunder.
Friday’s game featured several lead changes. Trois-Rivieres had 3-1 lead early in the third period when Adirondack tied the game thanks to two power play goals. Defenceman Alex Breton won the game for the Lions 1:47 into overtime to snap the four-game losing streak.
“This game should never have gone to overtime. We shouldn’t have given them a point. We were undisciplined. At least it happened in a win, but we can’t play like that thinking we’ll win games. Indiscipline tarnished this win,” Belanger said.
#ECHL announces that #Lions3R forward Brennan Saulnier has been suspended for two games and fined an undisclosed amount as a result of this boarding incident from last night's game at Colisee Videotron pic.twitter.com/Jz7m7mdK4Y
— Chris G (@ChrisHabs360) November 5, 2022
On Saturday, Adirondack had a 3-0 lead before Trois-Rivieres got on the board. The Thunder added three goals in the third period to go on to 6-1 victory.
“The first five goals, we gave it to them. They were monumental mistakes we made. We struggled to put the puck in the net again, but we really gave the opposition five goals,” said the coach.
Trois-Rivieres will head to Florida this week to face the Jacksonville Icemen on Friday and Saturday, and the Orlando Solar Bears on Sunday.
(Quotes courtesy of Le Nouvelliste)
Listen to the Canadiens Connection podcast
TSN’s John Lu shares his thoughts about covering the Montreal Canadiens for the past 15 years and offers his opinion on the future of Pierre-Luc Dubois.
Here’s a brand new episode of the Canadiens Connection podcast!
Listen in the player below, share and subscribe!
By Chris G., Senior Writer
All Habs Hockey Magazine
Copyright © 2022 Rocket Sports
===