Goaltender Cayden Primeau shone in front of his net, but the Montreal Canadiens lost 3-2 in overtime to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night.
Artturi Lehkonen and Nick Suzuki rocked the ropes for the Canadian (8-25-7), who was trying to find the path to victory. Suzuki added an assist to their record.
Gabriel Landeskog, in overtime, Alex Newhook and Valeri Nichushkin blackened the regulation score for the Avalanche (28-8-3), which extended their home winning streak to 15. Devon Toews stood out with three assists, and Samuel Girard with two.
Head coach Jared Bednar’s men hit the target twice in four power plays, while the Canadian converted one of his two chances. The CH also scored a goal on the power play in a fifth game in a row.
Primeau was back in front of the net for the Habs, who have been conceding a lot of shots to their opponents lately. After 104 shots on Samuel Montembeault in two previous games, Primeau finished his night’s work against the Avalanche with 43 saves – a career high for him in the NHL.
His counterpart, Darcy Kuemper, gave up twice on 30 shots for the Avalanche, first in the Western Conference.
Things got off to a bad start again for the Habs, after he conceded the first goal for the 27and times this season. It was the work of Newhook, who opened the scoring on the power play midway through the first period.
Nichushkin doubled the home side’s lead the same way, while Laurent Dauphin was in the dungeon at 8:57 into the middle period.
The Canadian finally recovered and fought back with 1:43 left in the second period. Suzuki orchestrated a great two-on-one run that was completed by Lehkonen. It was his fifth goal this season, and his first since Dec. 16 against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Nazem Kadri thought he had given the Avalanche a two-goal cushion early in the third period, but his net was disallowed following a challenge from head coach Dominique Ducharme. This decision smiled on the Canadian, since Suzuki tied the game on the power play at 8:06.
Landeskog then sealed the game at 1:16 of overtime.
The Bleu-blanc-rouge, who made his first visit to Colorado since December 2018, however, did not start the meeting in the best possible mood.
The Canadiens announced in the afternoon that forward Jonathan Drouin suffered an upper-body injury and returned to Montreal. Cédric Paquette returned to the game and played his first game since January 12, against the Boston Bruins.
For his part, Montembeault suffered a minor upper body injury and his state of health will be reassessed on a daily basis. Montembeault’s absence meant that Michael McNiven was recalled from the reserve squad, and acted as backup goaltender behind Primeau.
The Habs are 1-2-3 since the start of this long seven-game road trip, which will end Monday night with a duel against the Minnesota Wild.