Finnish forward Artturi Lehkonen greeted his return to the Bell Center with a three-point performance, including the 100th goal of his career, and was instrumental in the Colorado Avalanche’s 8-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre.
Lehkonen had spent some great hours in Montreal over the past two days. Sunday night he reconnected with former teammate Brendan Gallagher and on Monday he reached his first major offensive milestone in his career. Had it not been for what appears to be a misfortune, Lehkonen would have had a perfect stay in the metropolis.
Monday night, the former Canadian scored two of his team’s four goals in the first period, his 19th and 20th of the season. He added an assist on the net of JT Compher (14th), registered early in the second period.
The offensive player however did not have the opportunity to improve his evening of work, due to an injury which forced him to leave the match later in the second period. However, according to information delivered after the meeting, Lehkonen suffered a broken finger in circumstances that are not clear.
In his post-match comments, head coach Jared Bednar implied that Lehkonen was injured by a shot. He will return to Colorado for surgery.
Bowen Byram (6th), Matthew Nieto (12th) and Mikko Rantanen (43rd) also beat Jake Allen, whose work night ended after just under 24 minutes of action, and six goals conceded in 15 shots.
After the match, defender David Savard defended his goalkeeper.
“The result is as it is. That’s not where I stop. It’s just the way we got out, the way we left Jake all alone,” lamented the veteran defender.
“It’s not his fault at all. It was us who played badly in front of him. We did not execute. We really left him alone and it’s up to us to apologize. It’s up to us to play better in front of him,” added Savard.
Samuel Montembeault took over and blocked 16 pucks. He yielded to Nathan MacKinnon (29th) and Valeri Nichushkin (13th) in the third period.
The Canadian’s response came from Josh Anderson (20th), Denis Gurianov (5th), Jesse Ylönen (3rd) and Mike Matheson (6th).
The Montreal team was limited to 19 shots on Alexandar Georgiev, en route to a seventh straight loss, including four in a row at the Bell Centre.
“We fought. They came out strong, we lacked execution on the way out, we dug ourselves a hole. It’s one of the rare periods recently where it’s been like that for us,” analyzed head coach Martin St-Louis.
“We tried to correct ourselves during the match. We see that this team won the Stanley Cup last year. You have to give him credit too. It was a hard task, especially with the hole we dug ourselves when we left. We fought,” he repeated.
The Canadian will be able to quickly forget this defeat since he takes back the collar the next day, playing Tuesday against the Penguins, in Pittsburgh.
Returning to the locker room after an injury in the first period, Rem Pitlick will accompany his teammates in Pittsburgh, St-Louis said.
The latter also confirmed that Montembeault will be in net against the boards at Sidney Crosby.
Support players win
The Avalanche almost didn’t need their big guns to put Martin St-Louis’ troops in a precarious position in the first half of the initial engagement.
Only one of the team’s top five scorers was on the Avalanche’s first three goals, scored in just five minutes, on just six shots.
But above all, these goals seemed easy.
“We just weren’t ready to play. They took advantage of all their chances and our game in the defensive zone was not good enough, especially against this team,” remarked the captain of the Canadiens, Nick Suzuki.
Lehkonen opened the scoring 2:59 into the game when he deflected a shot from Logan O’Connor behind Allen, even though he was hampered by Savard.
About three minutes later, Byram showed great acceleration down the right flank to get around Kaiden Guhle, then Allen, before sliding the puck into the net.
Nieto made it 3-0 at 8:05 of the first period after coming alone in front of Allen, following a precise pass from another former Canadian, Lars Eller.
Then Lehkonen reached 100 career goals with exactly four minutes left in the first period.
He achieved it thanks to another deflection, this one with his right arm, from a shot by Rantanen, 38 seconds after the start of a penalty to Matheson.
Anderson finally brought some cheer to the Bell Center stands by hitting the target with 62 seconds left in the kickoff.
This late goal, however, did not have the expected effects for the Habs, who conceded two other quick goals at the start of the middle period, those of Rantanen and Compher.
“It seems like our start to the period has been pretty bad recently. I don’t know why it’s like that. Guys have to be ready on the first face-off,” Suzuki said.
Compher’s net ended Allen’s night’s work and the Canadiens’ hopes of a first victory in March, despite goals from Ylönen and Matheson midway through the third period.