Another Massive Victory For The Habs Led By Usual Suspects

Cole Caufield continues to stay hot as he now has 7 goals in his last 6 games, including a goal in each of his last 3 games. With his goal on Tuesday night, he recorded his 300th career point in the process. Mike Matheson, who got an assist on the goal, also put up his 300th career point on the play. It was a rare moment where two players hit the same milestone on the same goal.

Once again it was Dobes who was the key component to giving the Canadiens their 6th straight victory. Tuesday night was a very tough test for Dobes, who struggled a lot in his two previous starts against the Lightning; however, with his newfound confidence, he is playing on a whole new level. Dobes is no longer the goaltender that makes big saves by flailing around his net; he is now always in good position, which helps him prevent giving many second chances.

As mentioned in many other recaps, a lot of his improvement needs to be credited to new goalie coach Marco Marciano, who seems to have really worked hard on Dobes’ positioning, given how much bigger and better he looks in his net than he did just 2 months ago. While most people consider that Jacob Fowler will be the Habs’ starting netminder of the future, Dobes could easily be that guy as well if he can maintain his great ability to track the puck and also solid positioning on every shot.

That’s not to knock Fowler, as at just 21 years old he looks like a special talent in goal, but the improvement of Dobes the last few months could force the Habs to need to choose a few years down the line, like the old Carey Price vs. Jaroslav Halak debate. It’s clear the Habs have two great young goaltenders that both have the chance to be the guy for the next decade in Montreal. Only time will tell what happens with these two goaltenders in the future, as for now Dobes will continue to be the main guy. If Dobes can continue his current play into the playoffs, it could allow the Habs to surprise a team or two in the playoffs as one of the league’s youngest squads going on a nice little run.

As good as Dobes was on Tuesday night, a lot of credit needs to go out to the defence in front of him, as they were great at blocking shots and cutting passing lanes to help make Dobes’ job easier. This was especially the case on the penalty kill as they played one of their best games of the season when it came to shutting the opposition’s power play. There were a few good chances from one of the league’s top power plays led by Nikita Kucherov, but the defence mixed with Dobes never allowed them to get too threatening as the Habs killed all four penalties on the night.

Meanwhile, it was the Canadiens’ power play that got things started offensively. The start of the game saw both teams trading chances back and forth, but neither Dobes nor Lightning’s netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy would let anything get by them early on. That changed after Lane Hutson drew a penalty at 4-on-4 that would give the Habs a 4-on-3 man advantage for 21 seconds and then 5-on-3 for another minute afterwards. With time running down on the 2-man advantage, the Habs would open the scoring with Juraj Slafkovsky’s team-leading 15th power play goal of the season. Slafkovsky would score from a one-time shot that he took from inside the right faceoff circle near the goal line. The shot was so hard that it made Vasilevskiy’s stick spin in the process. With that goal, Slafkovsky is now just one goal shy of recording his first 30-goal season.

It wouldn’t take the high-flying Lightning took long to respond as forward Jake Guentzel would tie the game just 1:17 later. Guentzel would come around the net and perform a wraparound move into the slot that would beat Dobes through traffic at the side of the net to tie the game at 1.

The tie would continue the rest of the period as both teams continued to have strong goaltending to rely on. The deadlock would stay until past the midway mark of the game before the Habs would finally break it.

Caufield would get his goal and come just another step closer to the 50-goal mark with his 47th of the year to place him just 2 goals behind Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon for league lead. The Habs sniper now needs 3 goals in 8 games to reach that elusive mark and get his name written in the team’s history books alongside many Hall-of-Fame goal scorers for the team. This goal would actually come relatively easy for Caufield, as all he had to do was tap it into an empty net following a perfect pass in the slot by Slafkovsky, who did all the work to bring the puck up and reward Caufield with the goal. Once again Slafkovsky had a huge night at both ends of the ice as he continues to develop into one of the best modern-day power forwards in the league at just age 22.

After Caufield’s goal, it would be a long time before there would be any more goal scoring. However, the third period was very physical, with both teams delivering hard hits to star players such as Suzuki and Kucherov, who were victims of the hard physical play. The majority of the hits were clean, but they would create scrums and would lead to multiple coincidental penalties that would offset each other. Surprisingly, nobody received any misconducts, but the final three minutes of the game saw both teams take 28 penalty minutes each (all for roughing minors except Jake Evans, who got called for a boarding minor) as it showed the true rivalry and intensity that comes from a playoff game. There also wasn’t any real fights but more so wrestling matches between opponents in a tight game that saw frustration boil over for the Lightning.

After killing off a penalty with just over 2 minutes left in the 3rd period, Matheson would get his second point of the night by shooting the puck down the ice into the empty net with Vasilevskiy pulled. This goal essentially sealed the deal for the Canadiens getting the win, but they weren’t done there.

Suzuki would officially put the Lightning to bed with an empty net goal on a 3-on-1 that included Caufield for a rare moment of him being out to help defend his team’s lead. Despite Caufield being so close to 50 goals, Suzuki decided to make the save play and put the puck in the net himself for his first point of the night. As a result, Caufield has still never scored a single empty-net goal in his career. Meanwhile, with his goal, Suzuki now has 92 points and needs 8 points in the final 8 games to reach the 100-point plateau. It continues to be a fun season for fans like myself who have yet to see a Habs player score 50 goals or get 100 points, yet we may be getting to see both this season with the way things have been going.

The Habs continue rolling as they are now just 2 points back of the Lightning for 2nd in the Division and 4 points back of the Buffalo Sabres, who won on Tuesday to claim 1st in the Atlantic. It seems like the Habs are no longer in a race to secure a playoff spot as they are 10 points ahead of the 9th place Ottawa Senators, but rather they are in a fight for the top of the Atlantic Division as the season comes down to the wire. The Habs proved that they can beat anyone right now with their win on Tuesday, and it will be interesting to see how the race for the top spot in the Atlantic shakes out going forward.

Tuesday’s game could have been a preview of what a first-round playoff series would look like if the standings stay the same. Nonetheless, the Canadiens are in an incredible position to clinch their spot very soon.

The Habs will continue their road trip on Thursday by heading to New York to take on the Rangers who are currently last place in the Eastern Conference.