FINAL | Round 2, Game 2 | Friday June 4, 2021

Canadiens lead series 2-0

Canadiens Lineup

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Cole Caufield

Artturi Lehkonen – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Paul Byron – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Josh Anderson

Joel Armia – Eric Staal – Corey Perry

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Joel Edmundson – Jeff Petry

Brett Kulak – Erik Gustafsson

Carey Price – Jake Allen

Tomas Tatar, Michael Frolik, Alexander Romanov, Charlie Lindgren

Alex Belzile, Laurent Dauphin, Lukas Vejdemo, Jesse Ylonen, Cale Fleury, Otto Leskinen, Xavier Ouellet, Cayden Primeau, Michael McNiven

Jonathan Drouin (undisclosed), Jon Merrill (undisclosed), Jake Evans (concussion)

Game Report

This series was billed as a battle of two of the best goalies in hockey and fans were treated to an excellent display of their work tonight. Not a single goal was scored in five-on-five play tonight by either team.

Carey Price stopped all 30 shots that he faced, including eight tough saves in the final three minutes of the game. Connor Hellebuyck had a lighter workload but was solid with only a short-handed goal by Tyler Toffoli getting by the Winnipeg goaltender. With the Jets pressing in the third, Hellebuyck stood tall on a couple of odd-man chances by Montreal.

The Jets came out with energy and jump controlling play for the first ten minutes of the game. The game then slowed as the Canadiens clogged the middle of the ice with the two teams playing a tight-checking affair. Opportunities were hard to come by at both ends of the ice.

With the Jets playing catch up most of the third period was played in the Montreal zone. Price came up big to keep Winnipeg off the scoresheet. It was clear that the Jets strategy was to get bodies in front of the net taking the eyes away from Price.

Winnipeg was committed to playing a physical game outhitting Montreal by a wide margin 49-20. Jets forwards were determined to soften up the Canadiens top-four defencemen who are logging huge minutes. While interim head coach Dominique Ducharme continues to pen Erik Gustafsson and Brett Kulak in the lineup, the coaching staff sees the bottom pairing as too much of a liability to play together on a regular shift.

The Canadiens head home with a 2-0 lead in the series riding a five game winning streak. Price has been named the first star in four straight games.

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