FINAL | Round 1, Game 5 | Wednesday August 19, 2020

Flyers lead series 3-2

Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Max Domi – Nick Suzuki – Jonathan Drouin

Paul Byron – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Artturi Lehkonen

Charles Hudon – Jake Evans – Joel Armia

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Xavier Ouellet – Victor Mete

Carey Price – Charlie Lindgren

Ryan Poehling, Christian Folin, Noah Juulsen, Victor Olofsson, Cayden Primeau, Michael McNiven, Jordan Weal, Dale Weise, Alex Belzile

Alexander Romanov

Game Report

The series is coming back to Montreal! Okay, not really. But by winning a ‘road’ game in game 5, Kirk Muller will have last change for game 6 on Friday evening.

Just like game 2, the Canadiens injected a healthy dose of emotion into their game. It was the type of focus and intensity that had gone missing in games 3 and 4.

Montreal was led out of the gate by Brendan Gallagher. Still snarly from his benching in game 4, Gallagher was back to his feisty, rabble-rousing self, more than willing to get his nose dirty. It’s been widely speculated that Gallagher has been playing with a right ankle injury since the second game of the series with the Penguins.

Another player slowed by injury is Joel Armia. After game one, Claude Julien hinted  loudly about an injury as the reason for Armia being moved to the fourth line. But Armia was tonight’s first star, scoring twice (one short-handed) with a plus-4 rating in just over 17 minutes of icetime.

Nick Suzuki had a strong night with a goal and an assist. Suzuki had another goal called back when Jonathan Drouin went offside. 

The Canadiens punished the Flyers with 39 hits. Despite playing a little more than a period, Jesperi Kotkaniemi co-led the team in hits. But when Kotkaniemi delivered a shoulder check to Travis Sanheim early in the second period, his night would be over. 

While we are fully supportive of the NHL’s efforts to limit concussions, the league got this one wrong. With Kotkaniemi committed to the hit, Sanheim made a last-second turn to exacerbate the contact. The Flyers turned the undeserved gift into two power-play goals.

And let’s not forget the play of Carey Price, who once again had a brilliant game. Price turned aside multiple odd-man rushes from the Flyers. At the other end, Carter Hart once again looked his youthful age giving up a couple of bad goals. 

Price heartily endorsed the work of his interim head coach saying that he is bringing energy and enthusiasm to the bench. Suzuki said that, prior to the game, Muller challenged the team’s first line to set the tone. With their coach’s words ringing in their ears, the trio led by Gallagher was physical out of the gate, dominating the first shift.

The tensions of bad blood kept building throughout the game. It will be interesting to see the carry-over for game six of the series that is scheduled for Friday evening at 7:00 pm.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Joel Armia, Nick Suzuki, Brendan Gallagher, Shea Weber, Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak, Jake Evans

▼  Max Domi, Paul Byron, Victor Mete, Jonathan Drouin