(Glendale) The Montreal Canadiens continued their slow descent into hell by losing 5-2 to the Arizona Coyotes on Monday afternoon in a duel between the two worst teams on the Bettman circuit during the Martin Luther King Day in the United States.
Posted at 6:44 p.m.
Rem Pitlick and Ryan Poehling hit the target for the Canadian (7-25-5), who thus suffered a sixth straight loss. Jonathan Drouin stood out despite everything with a harvest of two assists.
Travis Boyd, Johan Larsson, Janis Moser, Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller blackened the scoresheet for the Coyotes (9-24-4), who snapped a two-game losing streak. It should be noted that the formation of Arizona was still deprived of its head coach, André Tourigny, who is subject to the protocol of the COVID-19.
Cayden Primeau started in the net for the Habs, but he was replaced by Samuel Montembeault in the third period. Primeau, making his fourth start this season, conceded four goals on 16 shots, and Montembeault finished the game with six more saves.
His vis-à-vis, Karel Vejmelka, finished the game by repelling 24 of 26 shots aimed at the Coyotes net.
The “draft lottery game” started well — in a way — for the Canadiens.
Boyd opened the scoring for the hosts at 5:19 of the first period, then Larsson then doubled the Coyotes’ lead at 8:18.
Pitlick, however, narrowed the lead to 2-1 with 4:49 to go. It was his first goal with his new team, which claimed him off waivers from the Minnesota Wild last week.
The Habs then retreated to the locker room for the first intermission, pulling from behind, but they could hold on to hope. The Coyotes are the worst performing team in the NHL in the second period, with a minus-32 goals scored/goals against differential. Except it didn’t go as planned.
The hosts added two more goals — courtesy of Moser and Schmaltz — in the middle period, which were separated by Poehling’s on the power play. It was the Habs No. 25’s fifth goal of the campaign. Thus, after 40 minutes of play, the Coyotes were leading 4-2.
The Canadian, however, lacked energy in the third period, and Keller sealed the outcome of the game by shooting into an empty net late in the game. The CH has thus consolidated its hold on the 32and and last place in the NHL, and he increased his chances of winning the draft lottery at the same time.
In addition, the Canadian continues to obtain reinforcements while Josh Anderson became Monday the most recent player to return to training. The 27-year-old Ontarian, who hadn’t played since Dec. 2 with an upper-body injury, was playing with Mike Hoffman and Nick Suzuki.
Canadian forward Christian Dvorak was playing his first game against his former team since the trade that sent him to Montreal on September 4th.
In addition, Laurent Dauphin was recalled from the reserve squad before the match and took the place of Michael Pezzetta in the starting lineup of CH.
Defensively, Chris Wideman was back in action against the Coyotes after serving a one-game suspension for a header on Boston Bruins forward Erik Haula last Wednesday. He replaced Corey Schueneman.
The Canadiens will continue their seven-game road trip by visiting the Stars in Dallas on Tuesday night. Since this will be the second game in just over 24 hours for Ducharme’s men, it’s possible Montembeault will get the start in Texas.