After a game that head coach Dominique Ducharme did not hesitate to call “bad”, the Canadian bounced back with an inspired performance.
Ryan Poehling scored two goals, Artturi Lehkonen had a goal and an assist and the Montreal team defeated the Nashville Predators 6-3 on Saturday night at the Bell Center.
Samuel Montembeault also had a very good evening, especially closing the door to the Predators in the first period. He made 33 saves and won a first match in the Habs uniform.
The Canadian worked hard to make people forget Thursday’s poor performance, when he was humiliated 6-0 by the Pittsburgh Penguins. This time the effort was there and the result followed.
Tyler Toffoli had one goal and two assists, while Brendan Gallagher and Christian Dvorak also scored for the Canadian (5-13-2), who ended a four-game losing streak. Chris Wideman and Jonathan Drouin each had two assists.
Matt Duchene made it interesting with three third period goals for the Predators (9-7-1). Ryan Johansen and Mikael Granlund each amassed two assists.
Juuse Saros allowed five goals on 19 shots before giving way to David Rittich midway through the second period. Rittich turned back nine shots.
Wideman had been included in the formation of the Canadian in place of Michael Pezzetta and the Habs therefore had 11 forwards and seven defenders in uniform.
The Canadian will take the collar back only on Wednesday, when he visits the Washington Capitals.
Full effort
The first period was the affair of Montembeault, while the goalkeeper of the Canadiens made many difficult saves.
He first frustrated Johansen twice, ending up alone in front of him. He was also alert when Yakov Trenin deflected a Colton Sissons discount at point blank range.
Meanwhile, Lehkonen opened the scoring after 2:41 of play, taking advantage of favorable jumps against skates before pushing a free puck into the opening.
Montembeault was beaten after about nine minutes of play in the first period, but the referees determined that Luke Kunin had thrown the puck on the fly with his glove and the goal was disallowed.
In his second game in the NHL, defenseman Mattias Norlinder had a more difficult night. Montembeault came to his rescue twice in the first period, after Granlund and Duchene overwhelmed the Swedish defender in two identical stretches.
The Habs took control of the game in the first half of the second period.
Dvorak got the ball rolling by taking advantage of an assist from Josh Anderson to score his third goal of the season, after 66 seconds of play.
Gallagher then made it 3-0 at 3:32 of the second period on a power play. He only had to deflect a pass from Drouin in a gaping cage.
Predators head coach John Hynes called for time out to whip his troops, but that didn’t change the pace of the game.
The Predators wasted a few opportunities at close range, then Poehling knocked them out with two goals in an interval of 37 seconds halfway through the opening.
Each time, Poehling foiled Saros with a high shot from the side of the mitten. Saros was eventually replaced by Rittich after Poehling’s second goal, at 10:08.
Frustrated, the Predators tried to shake things up late in the second period. Mathieu Olivier threw the gloves in front of Anderson. Then as calm seemed to have returned, a second scrimmage broke out.
Duchene shook the Canadian by scoring twice on the power play in the third period, 6:36 and 12:53 of play. He then increased the score to 5-3 with 3:33 remaining on the clock.
Toffoli stopped the bleeding by scoring in an empty net with 1:30 to go.