Home Featured Bad Penalties Sink Habs | RECAP: MTL @ DAL

Bad Penalties Sink Habs | RECAP: MTL @ DAL

Rick Stephens
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Bad Penalties Sink Habs | RECAP: MTL @ DAL
Wyatt Johnston, Dallas Stars (Photo by Sam Hodde/NHLI via Getty Images)

GAME RECAP | Montreal Canadiens vs Dallas Stars: Habs, Line-up, Score, Statistics, Highlights, Post-game, Interviews, NHL, Three-Stars

FINAL | Game 34, Away Game 18 | Friday December 23, 2022
American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX

CANADIENS

Montreal

2-4

 Dallas Stars logo

STARS

Dallas
Wyatt Johnston, Dallas Stars (Photo by Sam Hodde/NHLI via Getty Images)

Canadiens Lineup

Forward lines

Jonathan Drouin – Nick Suzuki – Joel Armia

Cole Caufield – Kirby Dach – Mike Hoffman

Juraj Slafkovsky – Christian Dvorak – Josh Anderson

Michael Pezzetta – Jake Evans – Anthony Richard

Defence pairings

Joel Edmundson – Kaiden Guhle

Jordan Harris – Johnathan Kovacevic

Arber Xhekaj – Chris Wideman

Goaltenders

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Scratches

Evgenii Dadonov

Injuries

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), David Savard (upper-body), Sean Monahan (lower-body), Mike Matheson (lower-body)

Game Report

The final score was kind to the Montreal Canadiens because for long stretches throughout the game, they were completely dominated in Dallas. In the first period, shots attempts were 17-to-6 for the Stars, but the Habs escaped with a 1-0 lead on Jake Evans’ first goal of the season. High danger scoring chances were 6-1 for Dallas.

The Canadiens fourth line struck again early in the second period as Michael Pezzetta scored his second goal of the season.

Meanwhile the top nine was just a confused jumble of ineffectiveness. Nick Suzuki was saddled with two players who, in 41 games combined this season, have precisely zero goals. As a result, Suzuki with Jonathan Drouin and Joel Armia were crushed by their Dallas counterparts — shots attempts were 8-23 at 5-on-5 for 60 minutes. 

Kirby Dach with Cole Caufield and Mike Hoffman fared better, particularly Dach, but were unable to make a dent in the Dallas defence.

The architect of this fine mess was Marty St. Louis. The head coach may have succeeded in injecting some emotion into the play of his fourth line but in the process destroyed any cohesion among the rest of his lineup.

And then there was the parade to the penalty box. Bad penalties by Drouin, Hoffman, Chris Wideman and Pezzetta in the final 26 minutes sunk the Habs. The vaunted Stars power-play scored three times to claim victory.

At the final buzzer, Dach was assessed a 10-minute misconduct for abuse of officials.

Up Next

The Canadiens are on a Christmas break and not back in action until Wednesday when they are in Florida to face the Lightning.

Plus

▲  Jake Evans, Kirby Dach, Jake Allen

Minus

▼  Jonathan Drouin, Juraj Slafkovsky, Joel Armia, Nick Suzuki, Joel Edmundson, Christian Dvorak, Chris Wideman, Josh Anderson, Marty St. Louis

Game Preview

Check out the game preview here: A Tough Test | PREVIEW: MTL @ DAL

The Numbers

Game Statistics
CANADIENS   STARS
24 Shots 36
40 Face-off % 60
1-for-2 Power Play 3-for-5
20 Penalty Minutes 4
27 Hits 16
32 Corsi For 51
Scoring Summary
FINAL 1 2 3 OT SO T
Canadiens (15-16-3) 1 1 0 – – 2
Stars (20-9-6) 0 1 3 – – 4
Scorers Goalies
  • MTL: Evans (1)-PPG, Pezzetta (2)
  • DAL: Hintz (15)-PPG, Hintz (16)-PPG, Johnston (10)-PPG, Kiviranta (5)-ENG
  • MTL: Allen (L) (9-13-1)
  • DAL: Oettinger (W) (14-4-3)

Stars of the Game

Official NHL Three Stars
NHL3stars
  1. Roope Hintz  DAL
  2. Jason Robertson  DAL
  3. Michael Pezzetta  MTL

Watch

Video Highlights

What Did They Say?

Post-game Quotes

Marty St. Louis

  • “It was one of our best five-on-five games in a long time, but we gave five power plays to a well-functioning unit.”
  • “I liked pretty much everyone’s game. We were engaged. We were up against a good team. It’s nice to see our support players producing. I’m happy with our trios.”

Michael Pezzetta

  • “I was playing pretty well until I took that stupid penalty.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

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1 COMMENT

  1. salut-bien chers amis,
    merci pour le post-game
    hmmm,
    coach trying to get something going,determine some collateral chemistry?
    CH14 and CH22 need to play together.chemistry there.
    evans,pezzeta can play with anyone.need to be on the ice
    impressed with kirby.the kid can play.the best is coming,,,
    vets gotta play better?hard though when line-mates are always changing?
    in/out of the line-up,etc.
    josh too,needs consistent line-mates.
    re-build,developement,experimentation,,,
    smoke is starting to clear on the season?
    .500 record at best?
    we’ll see,
    portez-vous bien
    familleCH,

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