FINAL | Round 3, Game 5 | Tuesday June 22, 2021

Canadiens lead series 3-2

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

Erik Gustafsson – Jon Merrill

Carey Price – Jake Allen

Tomas Tatar, Michael Frolik, Charlie Lindgren, Brett Kulak, Alexander Romanov

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

Jonathan Drouin (undisclosed), Jake Evans (concussion)

Dominique Ducharme

Game Report

Score first and play your game. That’s the formula for success for the Montreal Canadiens. Getting a lead allows the Habs to be comfortable in their structure and poised in their execution.

After the frustrating loss in game 4, it was a character win for the Habs to go into Vegas and pick up their third win of this series. It was Montreal’s most impressive win of the series. The Canadiens are now just one game away from the Stanley Cup final.

But the team’s focus must remain on this semi-final series. The fourth win will be the toughest to secure but the Canadiens now have the opportunity to do so at the Bell Centre on Thursday night.

All hands on deck

It was Jesperi Kotkaniemi who opened the scoring following the play as Josh Anderson drove to the net. Marc-Andre Fleury’s approach on the initial save took him well out of the play leaving a yawning cage for Kotkaniemi.

Nick Suzuki had a strong game with a goal and two assists but was just 22 percent at the faceoff dot. Cole Caufield scored a power-play goal, his third of the playoffs.

It was an impressive performance for the Habs young guns but they had a good deal of help from the veterans with a goal from Eric Staal and a terrific backhand pass from Corey Perry for Caufield’s goal.

The Golden Knights were frustrated by the Canadiens strong work in the neutral zone, and the pressure of the forecheckers particularly Joel Armia and Artturi Lehkonen. On the back end, the big four defencemen deserve a huge amount of credit for each playing in the neighborhood of 25 minutes with Shea Weber and Jeff Petry managing with injuries.

Despite the Canadiens allowing just 15 shots on goal in the first 40 minutes, nine were high danger scoring chances. Once again Carey Price made sensational saves on the Knights best shooters. And, in the third period, when Vegas was pressing, Price made multiple game-saving stops. Price thoroughly earned his first star selection.

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