All Habs GameDay: Thursday April 4, 2013

On this day in hockey history… In 1971 – Jean Beliveau played his final regular season game, the 1,125th of his career, a 7-2 Montreal loss to Boston.

PROJECTED LINE COMBINATIONS AND GOALTENDERS
(Will be updated following game day skate.)

Habs:

• Gabriel Dumont was recalled from the Hamilton Bulldogs of the AHL.
• Ryan White has been cleared to play and will be in the lineup.
• Tomas Plekanec is out with a groin injury.
• Colby Armstrong is out of the lineup, Michael Blunden will replace him.

Jets:

• Have claimed forward Mike Santorelli off waivers from the Florida Panthers.
• Have recalled forward Aaron Gagnon from the St. John’s IceCaps of the AHL.
• Have reassigned forward Patrice Cormier to the St. John’s IceCaps of the AHL.

TOP SCORERS

► Winnipeg, where have you been? 

• After playing against the Winnipeg Jets on January 29 in their fifth game of the season, the Montreal Canadiens will face them again in their second of back-to-back games this week.
• In the first match-up, Price had stopped 18 of 21 shots helping the Canadiens win over Ondrej Pavelec and the Jets. Pavelec had stopped 22 of 26 shots in the defeat, giving up two of his four goals against on the power play.
• On this occasion, we will see Peter Budaj in the lineup, who will have the chance to play in front of his family who happen to be in town visiting.
• Notable points from the first matchup: Brendan Gallagher (1 goal, 1 assist), Alex Galchenyuk (2 assists), Raphael Diaz (2 assists) and Andrei Markov (2 assists) all had two points a piece for the Habs; Olie Jokinen had been the only Jets’ player to obtain more than a point, ending the game with a goal and an assist.
• After this game, the Habs will face the Jets one final time on April 25th, in their second to last game of the season.

►It was 1-1 against the Flyers, then everything got weird:

• So it’s 1-1 in the second period when the Flyers take a 2-1 on a Simon Gagne wrister at 15:43.
• Only 46 seconds later, Brandon Prust puts one by Bryzgalov after a sweet pass by Alex Galchenyuk to Brendan Gallagher, who then relayed it to Prust for the goal.
• Only 20 seconds later, David Desharnais puts a wrister past Bryzgalov. Alexei Emelin and Max Pacioretty would both pick up their second points of the game on the play.
• Catch you breath!
• Third period comes along and Habs appear to be strolling towards a 3-2 win.
• With 5:06 remaining, Wayne Simmonds scores to tie the game.
• Only 1:30 later, Erik Bustafsson also scores for the Flyers, and they would never look back.
• Catch your breath! What happened?
• Five of the seven goals scored (not counting the empty netter) were scored within two spans combined to total 2:36. you might have missed something.

► Down goes Plekanec?

• Tomas Plekanec left the game midway through the second period on Wednesday against the Flyers after sustaining a lower-body injury.
• At the time this was written, there was no word yet as to the extent of his injuries and weather he would be in the lineup Thursday against the Jets.

► Rookie Watch:

• Wednesday night against the Flyers, Alex Galchenyuk had an assist while Brendan Gallagher was held off the scoresheet.
• Gallagher now totals 11 goals and 10 assists for 21 points on the season.
• Galchenyuk has amounted 3 goals and 13 assists for 16 points on the season.
• Respectively, they rank third and tied for seventh amongst rookies in the league.

Top 10 NHL Rookies / Total Points

1. Jonathan Huberdeau (FLA): 13G, 12A, 25PTS
2. Cory Conacher (TBL): 9G, 15A, 24PTS
3. Brendan Gallagher (MTL): 11G, 10A, 21PTS
4. Brandon Saad (CHI): 7G, 13A, 20PTS
5. Justin Schultz (EDM): 6G, 13A, 19PTS
6. Nail Yakupov (EDM): 7G, 11A, 18PTS
7. Vladimir Tarasenko (STL): 8G, 8A, 16PTS
8. Mike Zibanejab (OTT): 6G, 10A, 16PTS
9. Marcus Foligno (BUF): 5G, 11A, 16 PTS
10. Alex Galchenyuk (MTL): 3G, 13A, 16PTS

Head Coach Michel Therrien on the Habs intensity against the Flyers:

“We didn’t play a good game. It’s that simple. We didn’t match their level of intensity and the results showed that.” said Michel Therrien. “When you have six shots in two periods, it shows your level of play and they were a lot more intense than we were. They deserved to win tonight.”

Carey Price on the Flyers’ lucky bounces:

“They got four pretty lucky goals in my opinion and that’s the difference,” said Price. “But I don’t think we played well enough to win that game, regardless of the bounces. I think we definitely could have played better collectively as a group. We just didn’t have our legs under us. They played hard. You have to give their team credit.”

Brian Gionta on the Habs losing Plekanec in the second period:

“It’s always tough when you lose a guy like that,” mentioned Gionta. “But other guys have to step up and fill in that role. Even before we lost him, we were struggling getting our game going and we just never found our rhythm. We got a couple bounces that led to a couple of quick goals to get us ahead but we weren’t playing good hockey most of the game.”