CANADIENS
Montreal

1-3

ISLANDERS
New York

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Danault – Radulov
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Byron
Andrighetto – Flynn – Shaw
Carr – De La Rose – Mitchell 
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Beaulieu – Petry
Barberio – Redmond
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

Alex Galchenyuk, Ryan Johnston

Injured Reserve

David Desharnais (knee), Greg Pateryn (ankle), Andrei Markov (lower body)

Game Report

This has been quite a week for Carey Price. Last Saturday at the Bell Centre, Price made 35 saves against the Buffalo Sabres single-handedly stealing a point for the Canadiens with a brilliant performance. Buffalo’s Zach Bogosian received the token nod for scoring the overtime goal. Price was named second star but was clearly the best player on the ice for both teams.

On Tuesday night, Price was named first star of the game with a 30-save outing and just one second away from a shutout. The Canadiens were outshot in the game but opportunistic with their scoring.

Visiting the Barclays Center on Thursday, the Canadiens were completely AWOL. The team was ill-prepared to start the game and it went downhill from their. There was one exception. Price was superb again on this night.

The final shot tally was 42-to-22 for the Islanders. But, as lopsided as the stat suggests the game went, it was generous to the Canadiens. Montreal outshot the Islanders 8-1 in the final 12 minutes of the game. At one point, shots were 41-14 for the home side.

Miraculously the two teams were tied after two periods. And the Canadiens were still within one goal with five minutes left to play. The only reason Montreal had a chance was the brilliance of Carey Price.

If you blame Price for the Islanders first goal, you would be wrong. That is entirely at the feet of Nathan Beaulieu who couldn’t possibly have played that sequence worse. 

Fortunately Michel Therrien announced that Andrei Markov will be rejoining the team on Monday. It can’t come fast enough that Beaulieu is returned to the third pairing. Perhaps Marc Bergevin has something else in mind as just before the game it was announced that the Canadiens had acquired defenceman Nikita Nesterov from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Nesterov does fit the specifications mentioned last week by Bergevin in that he is a left-handed puck-moving defenceman but most assumed that the Canadiens GM was looking for a top-4 d-man. In that respect, Nesterov would fall short.

~~~

▲     Carey Price, Shea Weber, Artturi Lehkonen

▼     Nathan Beaulieu, Michel Therrien

1.  Andrew Ladd  NYI
2.  Nick Leddy  NYI
3.  John Tavares  NYI

Nathan Beaulieu

• “Obviously giving up all those shots is unacceptable, so in a sense we let [Carey] down, but overall we just let ourselves down. It sucks that we put Pricey in that position — he’s our rock so it’s unfortunate — but we’ve been known to bounce back, and now we’ll have some time to think about it.”

Carey Price

• “We fell a bit flat at times, but [the Islanders] played very well. They played with a lot of speed and they made it hard for us to come up the ice. They executed their game plan perfectly.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

https://twitter.com/justforthefrenz/status/824802123418365958

Shea Weber is the first #Habs defenceman with 10 Power Play goals in a season since Andrei Markov in 2007-08

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) January 27, 2017

Canadiens acquire defenseman Nikita Nesterov from Tampa, in return for defenseman Jonathan Racine and a 6th round pick in 2017.

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 27, 2017

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