This is the 41st game, the midway point of the season. Canadiens are 13th in the East, but a healthy 19 points up on last place Detroit. Tanking won't work this season. Les boys are on pace for an 84-point season though...
First game of the Ilya Kovalchuk era, except he hasn't sorted out his visa yet, so he won't play.
(Francois Gagnon: Ilya Kovalchuk : le pari de la dernière chance)
Marco Scandella will play his first game for the bleu-blanc-rouge, wearing number 28.
Le bleu-blanc-rouge te va bien, Marco!— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 5, 2020
🔵⚪🔴 looks great on you, Marco!#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/XcIdQrBxBh
28 is the wrong number for Marco Scandella, that's the Pierre Larouche number. Éric Desjardins, sure, I'd guessed you might bring him up, that Johnny-come-lately...
The Canadiens start off well and earn a powerplay early, but can't get much of a threat generated. Ilya Kovalchuk, sitting in the pressbox watching this, must be itching to get on there and show them how it's done.
Artturi Lehkonen gets the first goal, and is starting to look more like the 20-ish goal-scorer we thought he was going to be, instead of the snakebitten frustrating enigma he's been for a couple of seasons.
The Penguins get one right back though and tie it up 1-1. Canadiens are notorious this season for allowing goals a minute or two after they score one.
The first period was marked by another ugly incident that is so routine in the NHL that it will be ignored by the powers-that-be, but should have landed Max Domi in the hockey slammer. On a fairly innocuous play, Domi carried the puck and tried to deke around Marcus Pettersson of the Penguins, who made a fine defensive play and stripped him of the puck. Subsequently, their skates touched and hips collided and both went down, but this was after the puck was gone, and not a result of an illegal or dirty play.
What does Max Domi do but get up and attack Marcus Pettersson, first crosschecking him then dropping his gloves and starting to punch him before the defenceman knew he was in a fight, let alone why. Somehow, Max Domi only got an extra minor for crosschecking, and both got five minutes for fighting. No instigator penalty, which was clearly called for, and no expulsion from the game.
This should be a textbook sequence to coach up new referees on how to award instigator penalties. I mean, Max should be the poster boy for the instigator, with Chris Neil and Brad Marchand and Nazem Kadri.
Hockey is a great sport, but the NHL is a garbage league.
Change coming at a glacial pace. This year, we've removed Nick Kypreos and Don Cherry from their pulpits. Maybe 50 years from now, that type of play will be met with an appropriate response. Meaning, jail time.
In any case, now is the time to trade Domi to Calgary for TJ Brodie and a first. It can't be soon enough.
Brian Burke in the first intermission opines on the Canadiens, and says that a GM should/would like to see his team getting better fast or worse fast, but not treading water, as the Canadiens are, with Shea Weber and Carey Price in their thirties, and most of the kids we're waiting on a ways away. Hmmm....
Is that Mike Bossy wearing #62? Early in the second, Artturi strips the puck off Erik Johnson, stuffs it in past Murray, 2-1 Canadiens.
Again though the Penguins respond, a minute or two later, with a goal by Bryan Rust, and it's tied 2-2.
Try as they might the Canadiens can't get that killer goal, the one that makes a difference in the game. Instead, we get a Scandella crossbar, Artturi with a chance at the hat trick and go-ahead goal... "We came so close!..."
And in OT, Brandon Tanev, of all people, puts it away, and ends the game, despite a blatant interference on Carey Price in full view of the impotent officials.
A loser point against a conference opponent. Straddling the growing gap between the dock and the boat. A moral victory.
So it goes...
Penguins 3-2 (NHL Game recap, stats)
(Radio-Canada: Le Canadien s’enfonce avec une cinquième défaite d’affilée)
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