(Montreal) It is important that the Canadian finishes the season strong and he made short work of a drifting prey on Tuesday evening at the Bell Centre.
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Juraj Slafkovsky scored his first hat trick in the NHL and the Montreal team defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 9-3.
At 20 years and 10 days old, Slafkovsky became the second youngest player in Habs history to score a hat trick. Only Stéphane Richer (19 years and 283 days) accomplished the feat at a younger age.
“It’s a good feeling,” Slafkovsky admitted. I don’t remember my last hat trick. But we won and we finally scored a lot of goals. This is what makes me even happier. »
Since the All-Star break, the 2022 top pick has now scored 12 goals and 16 assists in 29 games. Slafkovsky is just one goal shy of 20 this season, and two points shy of 50.
“It’s the result of everything he does,” head coach Martin St-Louis said of Slafkovsky’s production. He doesn’t arrive at the arena saying he wants to score. He prepares and plays the game. He’s been putting in overtime all season to work on his game.”
The Canadian took advantage of the generosity of the Flyers, who continued to collapse at the end of the season.
“If I compare it to golf, it’s like when you birdie the 18e hole. You can’t wait to come back, imagined St-Louis. The guys are proud. I am proud of their commitment, of collective progress. »
Christian Dvorak and Brendan Gallagher scored doubles, while Josh Anderson and Joel Armia also scored for the Canadian (30-36-12), who ended a three-game losing streak. Gallagher and Armia were also credited with an assist each, while Samuel Montembeault made 32 saves.
Dvorak returned to action for the Canadian after a 42-game absence. He suffered a pectoral major injury that required surgery and was originally expected to miss the remainder of the season.
PHOTO ERIC BOLTE, USA TODAY SPORTS VIA REUTERS CON
Christian Dvorak (28)
Jordan Harris had three assists, while Mike Matheson and Johnathan Kovacevic each had two.
Ryan Poehling, twice, and Joel Farabee provided the response for the Flyers (36-32-11), who suffered an eighth loss in a row (0-6-2). Samuel Ersson gave up five times against 17 shots in 32:42 of play before giving way to Ivan Fedotov. The latter stopped 10 shots.
“It’s a good group of players and I’m frustrated for them to see that we end the season like this,” said Flyers head coach John Tortorella. We have three games left and we need to finish playing the right way and then we’ll see where it takes us. »
Colin White was passed over in favor of Dvorak.
The Canadian will play his next game on Thursday, when he visits the New York Islanders.
Productive and festive evening
The Habs quickly opened the scoring after 65 seconds of play. Matheson fired a good one-timer, which deflected against Slafkovsky before moving the strings.
Both teams didn’t generate many scoring chances in the first half. Farabee missed a great chance for the Flyers, while Jayden Struble was unable to shoot into a gaping cage for the Canadian.
The Habs got going in the second period. After missed opportunities by Joel Armia and Nick Suzuki, Slafkovsky scored his second goal of the game at 8:43. He completed a nice passing game started by Matheson and Suzuki.
Gallagher returned to the charge at 10:46. He deflected a Kovacevic shot by placing his stick in front of Ersson’s glove, who could do nothing about it.
PHOTO ERIC BOLTE, USA TODAY SPORTS VIA REUTERS CON
Brendan Gallagher (11)
Tortorella called a timeout in hopes of stopping the Canadian’s momentum. It didn’t work as Slafkovsky completed his hat trick 36 seconds later. This time he beat Ersson to the shield side during a breakaway.
The Canadian added 1:20 later. The referees awarded a goal to Anderson, who pushed the puck into the goal as he fell after contact with defenseman Nick Seeler.
Fedotov entered the fray in relief of Ersson, but the Canadian quickly outwitted him. Dvorak hit the mark with 4:33 left in the second period, after a nice exchange with Harris.
Poehling put the Flyers on the scoreboard 4:54 into the third period, but Dvorak responded at 10:06 to restart the party in the Bell Centre.
Gallagher turned the iron in the wound for the Flyers by scoring on a breakaway 1:13 later.
Farabee scored the Flyers’ second goal with 4:55 left on the clock. Poehling added his second goal of the game with 2:53 remaining. These goals did not change the final result or the enthusiasm of the spectators.
After all, Armia scored in turn, on an assist from Gallagher, with 1:43 left in the game. Armia thus smashed his personal mark with a 17e goal this season.
In details
A big comeback for Dvorak
After missing the previous 42 games due to a torn pectoral major and then an operation, Christian Dvorak was finally back on this very festive Tuesday evening at the Bell Center against the Philadelphia Flyers. Dvorak was supposed to miss the rest of the season according to the Canadian, but he was able to return earlier than expected, and he even took advantage of this celebration against the Flyers to score two goals, his fourth and then his fifth of the season. He had not scored since December 18. “ I feel good, he explained at the end of the evening. It’s a weight lifted off my shoulders. I’m especially happy to be with the guys and to fight with them. It was nice to be part of such a match and see Slafkovsky score three goals… I felt better and better as the match progressed. You can skate all you want, nothing compares to playing real matches. »
The Flyers have (again) problems in front of goal
Death, taxes, Flyers who don’t have goalies. There are such certainties in life, and once again, the curse of Pelle Lindbergh continues to strike Rocky’s hometown team. This time, Samuel Ersson and Ivan Fedotov were sent into the fray, and it wasn’t exactly a success. The first was taken out of the game in the second period, after allowing 5 goals on 17 Montreal shots, and then, Fedotov took over without it improving, allowing 4 goals on 13 shots in his turn. Once this difficult evening was over, Ersson was kind enough to answer our questions in the visitors’ locker room. With a downcast expression, he pointed at himself. “It’s hard to explain… I find it embarrassing for us, my performance is not acceptable at all, especially at this time of the year. I’m embarrassed about my game and I need to play a lot better than I have been playing. I try my best, I have to be better in several aspects. »
A crowded visitors’ locker room after the match
Members of the media were treated to quite a surprise when the door to the visitors’ locker room opened at the end of the evening: all the Flyers players, without exception, were seated at their lockers. From memory, this is the second time in his 25-year career that your humble servant has seen such a scene (Alain Vigneault had demanded the same thing from the Canadiens players here at the end of the 1990s). We understand that this decision came from John Tortorella, who was otherwise surprisingly calm at the end of the evening. “They have to answer questions,” explained the Flyers coach about his players. This is a good group, regardless of what happened here. We weren’t good, but they’re a good group, I’m frustrated for them… We made mistakes. I’m not going to question the players’ effort, but we’ve reached rock bottom. I don’t like to see something like that after this team’s good performances since the start of the season. We made a lot of mistakes, mistakes we don’t usually make. The last two games, we did things that we haven’t done all season… We have to find our dignity and play the right way. »
Richard Labbe, The Press