There were heroes on both sides tonight. Alex Ovechkin, certainly, continued to feast on the Canadiens, cashing in one of his trademarked one-timers, and scoring a Tim Kerr-like goal by having a shot bounce off his pants and bloop over Carey Price into the net.
Lars Eller seemed like he might be the spoilsport, raise his game and steal a win in his former team's rink. He scored two nice goals, and celebrated them with reserve, like a studied assassin.
Brendan Gallagher piled two more goals onto his torrid start, potting two within three minutes to start the second period and give the Canadiens seeming command of the game, and making this fan start to believe, after the sobering loss against the Stars.
Pierre Houde and Marc Denis of RDS commented how Gally had that one season with 24 goals, and the pundits credited him with a great effort but in the next breath would opine that he might not ever score that many again, that it was an outlier, until his 31 goal season last year, with the same rumbling from the analysts and experts, "career year, great job, but don't expect this kind of outburst from him again..." Well now, Monsieur Houde said, with 9 goals in 12 games, maybe we should stop making skimpy predictions and just let him show us what he can do. Injured and re-injured hand or no, and despite the pronouncement that it would affect his game, that he'd not be able to grip his stick or play the same, Gally just keeps on ticking.
And Tomas Tatar, who had cooled off somewhat lately, was a worthy companion, assisting on both of Brendan's goals, getting three shots of his own, and dishing out three hits, in a night when he buzzed around the ice and got the Nouveau Forum crowd to its feet a couple of times.
But the night belonged to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who scored his first NHL goal early in the first period on a line rush three-on-two, when he fired a good wrist shot past Braden Holtby, and grinned from ear-to-ear on his way back to the bench.
More importantly, with the Canadiens trailing 4-3 late-ish in the third period, and the story portending to be of the good guys firing lots of shots but failing to score that crucial goal, he took part in a goalmouth scramble and managed to bat a puck through the Caps' goalie and into the net.
So two goals for the young prodigy who couldn't produce until now. This will silence the naysayers, whoever they may be, who would point to his measly point totals, to the big honking zero in his goal totals.
Carey Price, who was singled out in a recent press conference by General Manager Marc Bergevin as a player who was doing well and worthy of his trust, but who didn't have to do everything by himself this season, kind of proved that bit of wisdom tonight, with a ho-hum performance. Some routine miracle saves, but a .871 save percentage, on 27 of 31 shots. In years past, that would have sunk the Canadiens, but not this season so far. There are other game-changers in bleu-blanc-rouge.
Like Max Domi, for one. I'm not in love, I'm not even in like, but the kid risks growing on me at some point. He's made a specialty of scoring early or late in periods so far, and tonight, with the score tied 4-4 and many a fan expecting overtime, in the last minute he foiled an Alex Ovechkin shot attempt in the Canadiens' zone, wheeled around and took off, got a pass as he hit his stride in the neutral zone and, using John Carlson as a screen, shot the puck at Braden Holtby who flubbed the save, letting it dribble out of his glove into the net.
Off the next faceoff, with the Capitals' net empty, Joel Armia got the puck off a Phillip Danault draw and shot it in to get the insurance goal. Mathias Brunet of 'La Presse' wrote today that if you rein in your expectations, if you don't expect him to be a big scorer, and if you appreciate what he brings to the table, 6'4" size and a right shot along with a fourth and seventh-round pick at the risible cost of taking Steve Mason off the Jets' hands, there's a lot to like in Joel Armia.
So there are still some foibles to worry about, the poor faceoff percentage (39% tonight), and Carey not being essentially blameless, a fourth-line that refuses to take shape, and Mike Reilly falling off the pace, but let's trumpet the positives, the panache, the élan of the boys.
A big win and a mood-changer, after a clunker of a loss against the Dallas Stars, and a feeling in the fandom that this loss might have been the signal of something, that maybe the magic was fading away, and reality was about to set in. It looks like the magic carpet ride isn't over yet.
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