Habs News: Montreal Canadiens, NHL, Phase 4, Carey Price, Tomas Tatar, Brendan Gallagher, Claude Julien, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Qualifying Series
ROCKET SPORTS MEDIA | LAVAL, QC. — The Canadiens did the unthinkable on Friday by earning a playoff spot courtesy of a 3-1 series win in their qualifying series against the Penguins. If we’re all being honest, no one anticipated this outcome.
Pittsburgh was fifth in the Eastern Conference with 86 points when the regular season was paused while Montreal was 12th with 71 points. The Penguins also had two games in hand over the Canadiens. I’m not a math expert, but that’s a huge gap between the two teams.
The Penguins tied the series at 1, with a 3-1 win last Monday. Pittsburgh had a 2-0 lead when Jesperi Kotkaniemi cut the lead to one goal with 2:10 remaining in the third period. Jake Guentzel sealed the victory with an empty net goal two minutes later.
“We should’ve had a better effort. We need to be able to push for 60 minutes. The third period was our best period,” said a disappointed Claude Julien after the game. “To win with our young team, we can’t have any passengers. Tonight, there was players that we would have wanted to be better.”
The Penguins scored three consecutive consecutive goals after Shea Weber opened the scoring in game 3. In response, Julien shuffled his lines and his players responded with three unanswered goals to win 4-3 and take the series lead.
“It’s important that we build some confidence here with our group. I think that’s what you’re seeing. I thought we had lots of confidence even when we took that lead, we kept trying to play the game,” said Julien.
Artturi Lehkonen sealed the Canadiens ticket to the playoffs by scoring the game winning goal in game 4 with 4:11 remaining in the third period. Weber added an empty net goal, which allowed Montreal to win 2-0 on Friday.
“I thought we really developed into a really defensive cluster, and we made it more difficult for them to come up the ice, and we were just competing in our end. That’s what it basically came down to,” said Carey Price after recording the shutout.
The Canadiens will face the Flyers in the opening round of the playoffs starting with Game 1 on Wednesday. Philadelphia won all three games in the round robin to earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Price MVP
If there was a Most Valuable Player trophy handed out at the end of each series, Carey Price would have been the unanimous winner. He finished the series with 1.67 goals-against-average (GAA), and .947 save percentage (SV%).
“He gives us a lot of confidence for sure. He was outstanding the whole series, and today [Friday] have a shutout in a game like this, it gave us a lot of confidence,” said Lehkonen.
“He currently feels well, and he’s in the zone. He continues to have good games,” added the coach on his goalie. “We’ve had excellent goaltending since the start of the series.”
“He’s the backbone for us. He’s so solid every night. That allows us to play with confidence and not be worried about giving up chances, ” Weber said on Friday.
Carter Hart will be between the pipes for the Flyers to face his favourite goalie. He was outstanding in the two round robin games posting a 1.00 GAA and .966 SV%. I give the advantage in goal to the Canadiens.
Hart recently spoke about meeting Price in the NHL Bubble.
Living in the NHL Bubble has given Carter Hart the opportunity to chat with his favorite goaltender to watch growing up.
Hear that story and more in the latest @FlyersBroadcast Daily presented by @PennMedicine. https://t.co/E4vLCaL7Rx pic.twitter.com/weQSgCixTg
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) August 3, 2020
Top Line Not Producing
The Flyers have the advantage in terms of attack. In the regular season, Philadelphia played two games less than Montreal but had scored 20 more goals. Since the resumption, the Flyers scored 11 goals in three games compared to 10 goals in four games for the Habs.
The Canadiens top line of Tomas Tatar, Philip Danault, and Brendan Gallagher didn’t produce any goals against the Penguins. As part of the line shuffling that took place during game 3, Danault was replaced by Nick Suzuki in the middle of that line. On Sunday, the coach didn’t seem to be concerned on the line’s lack of production. “That trio whether it’s with Danault or Suzuki, they got their chances,” he said.
Montreal will need Tatar and Gallagher to produce offensively against the Flyers. “It happens to all the teams,” added the coach. The same can be said when looking at their next opponents. Travis Konecny, Kevin Haynes, Sean Couturier, and Claude Giroux had each scored 21 goals or more when the season was paused. In the round robin, none of them put the puck in the back of the net.
Defence
As expected, Julien heavily relied on Shea Weber, Ben Chiarot, and Jeff Petry in the qualifying round. The time on ice for all three defenders was higher than it was in the regular season.
The trio was solid for the duration of the series being a physical presence and kept the Crosby, and Malkin duo from having a significant impact. “We wanted to make sure we were physical on them and limiting their time and space,” explained the captain.
The ‘Big Three’ as labelled in the qualifying round each played on average 24:35 or more. For Philadelphia, the usage of the defencemen was more balanced with only Ivan Provorov being the only defender that averaged at least 24:35 of ice time.
Brett Kulak was Petry’s partner in even strength and besides a mistake that led to a goal in game 2, I think he played well. The third pairing of Xavier Ouellet and Victor Mete was inconsistent. Mete didn’t look comfortable playing on the right side until game 4. The last time that he regularly played on his off side, it led to him being sent to Laval for a brief stint.
Julien will need to rely again on the trio in round 1. I give the advantage on defence to the Flyers and their most balanced defensive unit.
Special Teams
The Canadiens struggled immensely on the power play finishing 0-for-12 against the Penguins. The good news is that the Flyers finished 0-for-11 with the extra attacker in the round robin.
The Flyers allowed one goal during the round robin on the penalty kill, while the Habs allowed three. Two of the three goals allowed by Montreal were during the same game.
The special teams may have been comparable since the return, but i will give the advantage to the Flyers in this category. They had more success than Montreal during the regular season on special teams and I think they have more dangerous weapons to get the power play going.
Predictions
On paper, the Canadiens are the underdogs in this series. In the regular season, there was an 18 point gap between the two teams, with Flyers having two games in hand.
The underdog role was a source of motivation in the qualifying round. “We were definitely all motivated going into this series. Nobody was giving us a prayer to beat them. That definitely played a factor into it. I thought we all took it with a grain of salt. Went out there and just tried to prove everybody wrong”, said Price at the conclusion of the Penguins series.
“We’re preparing to play in my estimation probably the best team here in the Eastern Conference right now by their play. I’ve seen them play four games now, they’ve played extremely well, they’re solid, they’re confident,” said Julien on Sunday.
Philadelphia had won nine of their last 10 games before the pause, and they also beat the Penguins in the exhibition game prior to winning all three round robin games. That’s a total of 13 wins in their last 14 games.
“We just have to be ready. We’re going to have to push hard, we’re going to have to do everything we can and play our best hockey to give ourselves a chance,” evaluated the coach.
Alain Vigneault and Michel Therrien will be motivated to beat their formal club. I think that Vigneault has a better roster on his bench and will be able to win the series in six games.
For those of you keeping track, I had predicted that the Habs would lose in four games against the Penguins. Place your friendly wages accordingly.
Canadiens Connection podcast
These issues, including post-game audio, and other current Habs topics were discussed in this week’s episode of the Canadiens Connection. Listen and subscribe!
By Chris G., Senior Writer
All Habs Hockey Magazine
Copyright © 2020 Rocket Sports
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