The Canadian had to relearn how to jog before sprinting. That’s exactly what he did on Thursday at the Bell Centre.
Joel Armia scored three goals, Mike Matheson had three assists and the Montreal Hockey Club defeated the Washington Capitals 6-2. At the same time, the Habs put an end to a series of four defeats, including the last two by shutout.
“We had been talking about the finish line for three or four games, that you had to sprint to the finish line. We looked more like we were crawling,” said head coach Martin St-Louis. Today, the goal was to start jogging. That’s what we did tonight. It may eventually help us to sprint. »
After a decent first period, the Canadian took control with four goals in the second period.
“I liked our first half. This is one of our best lately. But after a good first, it was to see which way it would go, said St-Louis. “Susie” [Nick Suzuki] went for a shorthanded goal that lifted the team. »
Suzuki had a goal and an assist, while Brendan Gallagher and Mike Hoffman also scored for the Canadian (31-42-6). Samuel Montembeault stopped 24 shots in his 100th career NHL outing.
Dylan Strome and Nicklas Backstrom scored for the Capitals (34-35-9), who suffered a fifth straight loss (0-4-1). Darcy Kuemper stopped 26 shots.
The Canadian also celebrated the 2SLGBTQIA + community and inclusion on this evening. Russian player Denis Gurianov, however, did not participate in the warm-up, during which the Habs players wore special jerseys for the occasion.
The team cited security reasons for Gurianov’s decision, a Russian law banning LGBTQ+ “propaganda” in the arts, advertisements and media.
Sean Farrell was left out to make room for Harvey-Pinard in the Canadiens’ lineup.
The Capitals were without forward Anthony Mantha and had to play to just 17 skaters, rather than 18.
The Canadiens will visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.
The awakening of the attack
The Capitals had the advantage early in the game and took the lead after 5:30 of play. Strome surprised Montembeault with a two-on-two attack.
The Canadian came close to replying on the power play, but Hoffman reached the post.
The trio of Suzuki, Harvey-Pinard and Armia was the most threatening of the Canadian in the first period and he continued his momentum in the second period.
Armia saw his shot miss the mark after deflecting off Nick Jensen’s stick early in the period.
Suzuki then bumped into Kuemper before giving heavily against the boards.
The Habs captain had his revenge on the Capitals goaltender moments later, tying the shorthanded tie at 3:42. He managed a nice fake before pushing the disc into the opening.
Harvey-Pinard hit the post when the Canadian went back to being shorthanded a few minutes later. However, Armia eluded Kuemper’s vigilance before the end of the penalty on Joel Edmundson, giving the Habs a 2-1 lead at 7:52.
Gallagher widened the gap at 9:23. Jonathan Drouin joined him in net after a turnover caused when Nic Dowd’s pass to Alexander Alexeyev hit the referee in the corner of Capitals territory.
Hoffman hit the post again moments later. Armia came back at 11:15, again on a pass from Matheson, this time with a powerful one-timer.
In front of his cage, Montembeault was effectively responsible for closing the door to the Capitals. Among other things, he stopped Tom Wilson during a breakaway when the visitors were outnumbered.
The third period was pretty quiet, aside from when Gallagher slammed into Kuemper after he lost his balance on the breakaway. A brief melee broke out.
Backstrom then cut the deficit to two with 5:33 to go, on the subsequent power play and when Kuemper was replaced by an extra forward.
Montembeault nevertheless continued by closing the door to the Washington players. Armia completed his hat trick with 3:02 to play, shooting into an empty net. Hoffman finally turned the iron in the wound by surprising Kuemper with 17.7 seconds left on the clock.
Locker Room Echoes
Joel Armia preferred to talk about the successes of the team rather than his personal performance.
“We’ve accomplished a lot of good things on the ice. We played a very good match, each period. »
Samuel Montembeault was happy to see the attack unblock.
“It took one to unlock!” In the first, we still had a lot of shots without scoring. In the second, we played very good hockey. There was a nice chemistry between [Mike] Matheson and [Joel] Army. »
The Habs goalkeeper was not the only one to sing the praises of Joel Armia, Johnathan Kovacevic is also counted among his supporters.
“His skills and work ethic are beyond doubt. It’s not easy when you often miss games due to injuries. It’s hard to be consistent. But his approach is flawless in every game. »