The Canadian wanted to tighten his game. He can say mission accomplished.
Arber Xhekaj and David Savard scored early in the third period, Samuel Montembeault made 29 saves and the Montreal squad defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-1 on Wednesday at Nationwide Arena.
The Habs had allowed at least four goals in each of their previous five games. He had also been guilty of poor encounter starts in his four most recent outings.
This time, the Canadian managed to limit his opponent’s chances. Montembeault took care of the rest.
Sean Monahan added an insurance goal in an empty net for the Canadian (10-9-1), which therefore scored a second victory in five games (2-3-0).
Mathieu Olivier was the only scorer for the Blue Jackets (7-11-1). Joonas Korpisalo stopped 26 shots.
Xhekaj and Johnathan Kovacevic were back in the Canadiens’ defensive squad, taking over from Jordan Harris and Chris Wideman.
Kaiden Guhle did not play alongside Savard for the first time this season. Guhle was paired with Joel Edmundson, and Savard with Mike Matheson.
The Canadiens will play their next game Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. when they visit the Chicago Blackhawks.
attack by defense
Neither team had a particularly impressive first half. Few quality shots were fired during the engagement.
The game picked up a little in the second half. Korpisalo distinguished himself in front of Monahan when the Canadian was playing on the power play.
Montembeault then saved the skin of his teammates, stopping Olivier and Gustav Nyquist on breakaways during the same sequence.
The Canadian also had luck when Johnny Gaudreau missed an open net on the power play, when Montembeault was out of position and Savard was lying in the goalkeeper’s semi-circle.
Meanwhile, Cole Caufield missed an open net after a Blue Jackets blunder following a bold Korpisalo outing as the teams played four-on-four.
The Blue Jackets finally opened the scoring after 68 seconds in the third period. Olivier took advantage of a missed lob by Matheson to fire a shot from the slot and he beat Montembeault on the side of the mitt.
The Canadian responded 90 seconds later. Xhekaj surprised Korpisalo with a long wrist shot. The Blue Jackets goalie didn’t seem to see the puck due to the traffic in front of him.
Savard then gave the Habs the lead 57 seconds later. He supported the attack and the throw-in from Kirby Dach in his direction deflected off his left skate before ending up in the back of the net.
Korpisalo kept the Blue Jackets in the game by robbing Monahan with his mitt midway through the final third. His teammates, however, came up against Montembeault at the end of the game.
Monahan scored the knockout blow, shooting into an empty net with 1:53 left on the clock.