CANADIENS
Montreal

0-3

KINGS
Los Angeles

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Plekanec – Byron
Eller – Galchenyuk – Andrighetto
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Weise
Carr – Mitchell – Flynn[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Beaulieu – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Markov – Gilbert[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Tokarski

Scratches:  Jarred Tinordi, Greg Pateryn, Charles Hudon
Injured reserve:  Brendan Gallagher, Carey Price, Devante Smith-Pelly

Game Report

On Thursday night, the Bell Centre was treated to a performance by the best defenceman in the NHL this season. And he wasn’t wearing red.

Very simply, the Kings Drew Doughty outplayed P.K. Subban. And it wasn’t even close. Doughty had a goal and an assist with a plus-2 rating in just over 25 minutes of icetime. On the ice for just a minute less, Subban had no points and was a minus-2.

But it was more than the basic stats. Doughty opened the scoring with a key goal in the second period. And then, faking the shot and delivering a perfect feed to Anze Kopitar, it was 2-0.

Despite the Canadiens holding a wide margin in possession, the lead felt insurmountable. Much of the reason for that was the guy between the pipes for the L.A. Kings. Jonathan Quick made 45 saves for the shutout, the first time that the Canadiens have been blanked this season.

Quick was better than his counterpart. As with the defensive comparison, it was by a wide margin. Doughty’s shot from the point was stoppable. Kopitar’s was not. But if you are Carey Price, you have a chance at the second goal.

While the general feeling among the fanbase is true — that Mike Condon is doing well for a rookie — he is no more than a backup performing at an average level. And that is simply not good enough on a roster built and coached with the assumption that the best player in hockey is in goal.

With shots on goal being so lopsided, 45-20 in favor of the Canadiens, it is understandable to come to the conclusion that Montreal won the battle of the forwards. But what about all of those shots? According to War on Ice, the Canadiens had 10 high-danger scoring chances in 5-on-5 play.

The Kings had eight. That’s just a two chance margin with Quick saving each of the 10. Los Angeles converted two of their h-d chances against Condon.

And in the head to head battle, Anze Kopitar (one goal) outplayed Tomas Plekanec, while Marian Gaborik (one goal, one assist) was better than Max Pacioretty.

With respect to the coaching matchup, it can be simply said that Michel Therrien has come up empty in any attempts to adjust for the loss of Carey Price and Brendan Gallagher.

And despite what you may have heard, it is Price’s loss that is more severely hurting this team.

So despite their domination in the possession game, the Canadiens failed to take down the Kings because their key players lost the individual matchups on Thursday night.

The Canadiens will fly to Dallas on Friday for their game against the Stars on Saturday night.

▲     Torrey Mitchell, Brian Flynn, Daniel Carr, Andrei Markov, P.K. Subban

▼     Tomas Plekanec, Jeff Petry, Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais

1. Jonathan Quick  LAK
2. Drew Doughty  LAK
3. Dale Weise  MTL

• “The guys had another excellent work ethic tonight. We went up against a goaltender playing at the top of his game. We didn’t lose this game because of a lack of effort.”
• “During this tough stretch, we’ve faced adversity and the wins have been hard to come by. Looking back, though, I think we dominated the majority of these games. This stretch will make us a stronger team in the long run. That’s why there isn’t any panic. We’re still playing good hockey.“

Max Pacioretty

• “I think it might be a time to get together, regroup, everyone try and feel good about themselves. Sometimes it works that way, where you get away from home, spend some time with the guys and you feel a bit better about your game. So maybe it’s a good time for that; I hope so, and I hope we show up against Dallas (on Saturday).“

Lars Eller

• “It’s a challenge [to stay positive]. In general, while I’ve been here, we’ve had a team that responds well to these kinds of challenges. We have a strong degree of confidence in the room. I still think it shows on the ice.”
• “I think we had the right attitude against the Kings. We came to play. We’re not getting outplayed. Most nights, we outshoot our opponents. Maybe we can get a little more on the inside. We need to grind a little more to get those rebounds, and there are a couple of things we can do better. But, we’re not far away.”
• “If we play this way the rest of the season, we will win more than we lose.”

Nathan Beaulieu

• “That’s a hell of a hockey team. That’s the tightest-checking game I’ve ever played in this League. They force everything and they don’t give you much room. For us to get almost 50 shots, I don’t know the exact number but I thought we played a pretty good hockey game, but this game’s about results and unfortunately we didn’t get the job done again.“
• “You give a guy an inch, and [Drew Doughty] will take it. He’s a special hockey player and he took advantage of a couple of mistakes we made and capitalized on them.”

Kings goalie Jonathan Quick

• “They had a good amount of zone time. I think the shot guys are pretty generous here, I saw that. It’s nice, but I don’t think that we got outplayed as bad as the shot differential was. I think we were right there for most of the game. They had moments where they had a little extended zone time but we were able to kind of weather it, and we got two big goals there in the second period.”

Kings coach Darryl Sutter

• “We won. We knew that we were going to get a big load early from them, and that’s what happened. I think we weathered the storm and Jonathan made some big saves. We were able to score the first goal. It was one of those games where you’re thinking as it was going along that the first goal was going to be the difference-maker.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

The best defenceman in hockey just took over. Doughty to Kopitar. 2-0.

— Brian Wilde (@BWildeMTL) December 18, 2015

Helmet repairs force #Canadiens' @Condibear1 to unveil his #WinterClassic mask early: https://t.co/wVwejqkGkQ pic.twitter.com/vftZJhZIgY

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 18, 2015

Eller. One strong game after another strong game with absolutely no fanfare. He's the next generation Plekanec. Quiet. Unassuming. #Habs

— Brian Wilde (@BWildeMTL) December 18, 2015

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