CANADIENS
Montreal

2-0

RED WINGS
Detroit

Game Notes:

Just one play.  With 3:19 left in the third period, David Desharnais lost a neutral zone faceoff to Pavel Datsyuk.  Gustav Nyquist spun away from the backchecking of Andrei Markov and fired the puck. Carey Price made a big save.  Just 2:49 remained in the third period.

With Price shutting down the Red Wings, the Canadiens needed just one play. And they got it just a few seconds later.

Max Pacioretty broke up the right wing and fired a shot on Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard. A big rebound when out the opposite side to Dale Weise near the blue line. With a nifty pass, he banked the puck off the boards to a streaking Tomas Plekanec who had just jumped on the ice for David Desharnais.  Plekanec fired a shot from between the circles past Howard on the blocker side scoring the game-winner with just 2:30 left.

Wings dominate, Price leads.  Those 50 seconds were a bit of a microcosm of the game. The Red Wings had dominated at the faceoff dot and in puck possession particularly for final 40 minutes.  Price had been perfect not only in manning the crease but in moving the puck out of the zone and bringing a calm, confident presence to his team.

Good work but good fortune too. Weise, who had struggled all game long made a smart play banging the puck off the boards past himself.  And it was Plekanec on the ice as Desharnais was the first on the line to change.  Plekanec’s shot beat Howard but safe to assume Desharnais’ would not have.

Stepping up.  Just one Habs trio established possession for significant stretches in the Detroit zone:  Jacob De La Rose’s line with Lars Eller and Brandon Prust.  The line had eight of 13 hits by Canadiens forwards.

Dynamic duo.  Andrei Markov has consistently been the Canadiens best defenseman all season long. He was very good again in this game.  And P.K. Subban has picked up his game since the All-Star break to form one of the best top defensive duos in the league.  Tom Gilbert has also been good of late. Tonight Gilbert led the team with five blocked shots and had three of seven hits by the defense corps.

Lock on Hart.  At the start of the game on the Sportsnet broadcast, a graphic was presented showing the Canadiens holding the league’s best road record, an impressive 16-8-1 (now 17 wins.)  Yet, the Habs are 29th in the league in goals scored on the road.  The team can thank Carey Price for their success on the road.  Coming into this game, Price was 16-3-1 in his last 20 starts with a 1.48 GAA, a .950 Sv% and two shutouts.

Historic blank.  With his 30th career shutout against the Red Wings, Carey Price moved into fifth place on the Canadiens all-time shutout list bypassing Patrick Roy.  Price earned his 30th shutout in his 414th game played. Roy had 29 shutouts in 551 games played. Price is the first Canadiens goaltender to post a shutout in Detroit since Michel “Bunny” Larocque on March 27, 1977.

Where’s the PP?  Mickey Redmond, former winger for the Canadiens and RedWings, said on Fox Sports Detroit, “Imagine if the Canadiens had a power-play, they would be running away with this thing.”

Plus / Minus

▲     Carey Price, P.K. Subban, Andrei Markov, Jacob De La Rose, Tomas Plekanec, Tom Gilbert

▼     Michael Bournival, David Desharnais, Alex Galchenyuk, Manny Malhotra

1.  Carey Price  MTL
2.  Jimmy Howard  DET
3.  Tomas Plekanec  MTL

• “Carey’s performances and calm demeanor have given us all confidence this season. The guys know he can get the job done and that reflects on the ice.”
• “Our team really has confidence playing those games. We know that if we stick to our plan, good things are going to happen.“

Carey Price

• “These are the types of games you want to be good playing in because these are the type of games you’ll be playing in the spring (playoffs). And I really like the way our team has been responding so far.”

Tomas Plekanec

• “Jumped off the bench. … I saw it was wide open in the middle of the ice and just tried to put myself in the best position to put it in the net.”
• “We know how to lock it down, and a big part of that is the goaltender we’ve got behind us. We know that [Carey Price] can shut the door and we’ve done a really good job of staying in the moment – not looking too far ahead or dwelling on what happened earlier in the game. We just focus on what we can control and we’ve been doing that well.”

Max Pacioretty

• “They’re a puck possession team. They’d rather skate it in than shoot it in, so you can’t get caught watching them. Our gameplan is to grind teams down and make them commit mistakes as the game goes on. We just try to tighten up and play the right way for 60 minutes.”

Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard

• “It’s a tough one, but a great game to be a part of. It definitely felt like a playoff game; no room, tough to get to both nets. It was a lot of fun.”

Red Wings forward Gustav Nyquist

• “It was a lot of fun. Two good teams playing against each other. We played a much better game (tonight) than we did the first two games. Fun game to play. Not so much fun to lose.”

Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock

• “I think they’ve got one of the best goalies in the world.  They don’t mind being in their zone, they don’t mind being outshot. They don’t mind any of those things. They just play, they wait for their chances. When they get their chances they score good.”
• “It was a check-fest. Not much happened. Not much room for either team, not many quality chances. There was good intensity and the next shot was going to win it. It’s a good experience for our guys.”